„Vitić Dances“ in Peru

At the beginning of October, the Cuzco Underground Cinema Festival (CUCIF) will begin. This is an independent film festival held in the beautiful tourist city of Cuzco, located southeast of Peru, recognized as the historical capital of the country and home to millennia of Inca culture.

Shadow Casters are proud that the feature-length documentary film “Vitić Dances” by Boris Bakal will be screened at the ninth edition of this festival, giving the international audience another opportunity to witness the story of the 20-year struggle of intermedia artist Boris Bakal and the artistic organization Shadow Casters. Through cooperation and conflict with the local community (co-owners and tenants), they have worked to restore a multi-residential building in Zagreb, a masterpiece of modernist architecture, which has become a metaphor for the entire Croatian and European society, with its dynamics, disputes, and delusions. It is a hypertextual story about exploring the purpose and futility of individual efforts for the common good.

The film has so far received valuable awards; Special Recognition at the Days of Croatian Film 2023, Special Recognition for the Preservation of Memory and Cultural Heritage at the 18th Balkan New Film Festival in Stockholm (Sweden), Grand Prize for Best Documentary at the Asian Talent International Film Festival 2024 in Ahmednagar (India), Best Documentary Award at the festival in Ecuador (San Antonio) and awards for Best Film, Best Production, and Best Director at a festival in London.

Director: Boris Bakal
Screenwriters: Boris Bakal, [Martin Semenčić]
Cinematographers: Adam Luka Turjak, Ante Cvitanović, Bojana Burnać, Bojan Haron Markičević, Boris Bakal, Damjan Nenadić, Danko Vučinović, David Oguić, Davorin Fahn, Dubravka Kurobaša, Filip Tot, Ines Lambert, Jadran Boban, Jasenko Rasol, Katarina Pejović, Lovro Cepelak, Mark Modrić, Rino Barbir, Sandra Uskoković, Plakor Kovačević, Srđan Kovačević, Veno Mušinović, [Vedran Senjanović], Tamara Cesarac, Tomislav Sutlar, Tomaš Kratochvíl
Editor: [Martin Semenčić]
Composer: Stanko Juzbašić
Producers: Boris Bakal, Adrijana Prugovečki, Tibor Keser, Ivan Kelava
Production company: Multimedia Arts Organization Shadow Casters
Co-producers: Croatian Radiotelevision

In addition to “Vitić Dances,” another film by a Croatian artist, Dalibor Martinis, will be shown in Cuzco. The film “Nth Cinematic Nail Factory” from 2021 is composed of video material shot by the author in 1999 at the horseshoe factory in Karlovac (closed in 2005). It consists of 99 shots. Special software arranges the shots in a new, random order each time it is run. Each generated configuration represents a unique author’s film, “Nth Cinematic Nail Factory”, where N is the ordinal number of each film edited in this way.