Award-Winning Croatian Film and TV Director Lukas Nola Dies
October 29, 2022 - The news of the passing of the renowned Croatian TV and movie director Lukas Nola shook Croatia today.
Lukas Nola, 59, passed away today in Zagreb, after a long battle with cancer, Croatian media reports.
His debut was in 1993, when he made a made-for-TV movie "When Nobody is Watching". His subsequent movies, "Every Time We Part" (1994) and "Russian Meat" (1995) were hits, winning awards at the Pula Festival and getting turned into popular TV series. He combined the genres of thriller, melodrama and detective story, was preoccupied with his original characters and was heavily influenced by David Lynch.
Then he turned towards art-movies, using a more modernist approach in his movies "Celestial Body" and "Alone" from the early 2000s, which also managed to win awards at the Pula festival. Those latter movies are influenced by Tarkovsky, and prove his exquisite visual style. His TV titles include "Operation Kajman" and "Guardian of the Castle" (which was a hit on the international scene and was even shown in the USA). He was also a play-writer, did some theatre directing and made numerous experimental films. He wrote the screenplays for all of his movies himself.
His wife is the renowned Croatian actress Barbara Nola, and their two children have also found themselves in various art undertakings.
Numerous Croatian actors, directors and other celebrities mourning the loss took to social media to say their last goodbyes to their friend and colleague today, including Goran Grgić, Dalibor Matanić, and many others.
Balkan Film Festival in Rome Starts Today, Croatian Movies Will Be Screened
October 8, 2020 – At the Balkan Film Festival in Rome, which starts today, October 8, 2020, and lasts until October 11, 2020, at the Casa del Cinema art cinema, four Croatian films will be presented, three of which are minority co-productions.
As Hina reports, the festival aims to acquaint the Italian audience with selected films from the countries of the Balkan region, which together make up one of the most diverse cinematographies in Europe.
The festival will begin with a documentary nominated for several prestigious awards, "Medena zemlja" ("Honey Land"), by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov.
A selection of the most interesting feature films from the region will also be shown, including Ognjen Svilić's "Glas" ("Voice") and three Croatian minority co-productions: Slovenian-Croatian-Serbian film "Izbrisana" ("Erased") by Miha Mazzini, Macedonian-Croatian-Serbian "Grudi" ("Breasts") by Marija Perović and Albanian-Italian -Macedonian-Croatian "Moje jezero" ("My Lake") directed by Gjergj Xhuvani.
The festival is held in co-operation with the Croatian Audiovisual Center (HAVC) and film centers in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia.
As HAVC reports, the festival is organized by Associazione Occhio Blu – Anna Cenerini Bova in cooperation with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MIBACT) and Italian Film Audiovisual and Multimedia Industries Association (ANICA).
As organizers say, the cinematographic works included in the program of the Balkan Film Festival are an expression of particular richness and meaning. The festival also seeks to encourage the active involvement of film centers in the region in the initiatives of the MIBACT and the ANICA to launch new cooperation between Italy and the Balkans.
"The aim is to encourage joint and multilateral programs to strengthen cooperation and the possibility of film co-productions, supported by quality integration processes at the level of the whole of Europe," it is noted.
Entrance to the festival is free.
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Croatian-Born Movie Producer Branko Lustig Dies
Croatian media reports that Branko Lustig, an Academy-award winning Hollywood producer passed away in Zagreb this morning. He was 87.
Nacional weekly wrote an obituary of the famous producer. He was born in Osijek in 1932, in a Jewish family which was heavily persecuted during World War II. Branko himself was a prisoner in both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen as a child, and his grandmother and father were killed in concentration camps. Lustig started his movie career in Zagreb, in then-famous Jadran film, where he worked in a series of roles, making movies and TV series (including some of the international hits, such as "Don't Look Back, My Son" and "Kozara") before his move to the US in 1988.
Soon after his move to Hollywood, the fame came for Lustig, as one of the first movies he was involved with was Schindler's List, one of the biggest hits of the decade and a movie which won 7 Academy Awards. Lustig was one of the producers of the film, along with Steven Spielberg and Gerald Molen. He also played a small part in the film, which is also said to have some of his and his family's experiences included in the story. He donated his Oscar figurine to Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, for eternal safekeeping. His other Academy Award came for Gladiator in 2000. He was the producer of many other Hollywood hits, such as The Peacemaker, Hannibal, Kingdom of Heaven, Black Hawk Down and others.
In his later years, he gravitated back to Croatia and Zagreb, and although he split his time between Zagreb and Los Angeles, he told the Croatian newspapers "But more and more, slowly, I am returning to Zagreb. I'm coming back." In Croatia, Branko Lustig served as a director of the Festival of Tolerance - the Jewish Film Festival.
