DUE TO HIGH DEMAND, SECOND SCREENING OF THE FILM “VITIĆ DANCES” ON APRIL 22, 2024, AT 6 PM

Due to high interest, the second screening of the feature-length dramatic documentary “Vitić Dances,” directed and written by Boris Bakal, with Martin Semenčić as co-writer and editor, will take place on April 22, 2024, at the Zagreb Cinematheque in Kordunska Street No.1.

The film follows, over nearly 15 years, the eponymous community art project by Boris Bakal and Shadow Casters, aiming to use various conceptual artistic means to bring the community of co-owners together for the collective restoration of the modernist architectural masterpiece by architect Ivo Vitić. The film premiered worldwide at the 19th ZagrebDox, and has since been screened at festivals in Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary, India, Sweden, and Ecuador. At the 32nd Croatian Film Days, “Vitić Dances” was awarded a Special Recognition, while at the Stockholm festival, it received a Special Award for the preservation of memory and cultural heritage. It was also honored as the Best Documentary Film at festivals in India (Ahmednagar) and Ecuador (San Antonio de Ibarra).

Following this screening, the Pula premiere will take place on April 30th at the Valli Cinema, followed by distribution in cinemas across Croatia. The film has already been invited to five more domestic and international festivals, and this is the only opportunity (for now) to see it in Zagreb.

From the media: 

“Bakal develops the film with the skyscraper as the main character, which is part of a broader activist engagement and the establishment of awareness about infrastructure in service to the community; in short, it affirms all those values that are cynically depicted as remnants of socialist heritage in contemporary debates… “Vitić Dances” is the best reminder of a corrupt environment and a community forcibly organized on the basis of the law of the jungle. Bakal, on the other hand, transforms concrete activism, in terms of moving to the location and developing empowering practices among the participants, into a dynamic film full of twists, documenting a period of about fifteen years.” – Iva Rosandić, “Vitić Dances – Dance Against the System,” Dokumentarni.net, April 7, 2023.

“The film’s theme is very important because it shows not only how artists, or individuals from the cultural sphere, encourage and attempt to achieve protection and restoration of valuable protected cultural monuments, i.e., individuals for the common good, for the community, but also how the system in the state, whose task it is, fails to do so. This becomes a metaphor for many such cases, but also reveals various interests and interpersonal relationships.” – Marijana Jakovljević, Glas Koncila, “Documentary from the Vitić Skyscraper – Individual for the Community,” May 27, 2023.

“Yet, the film’s message is far from dark. Above all, it is an ode to active coexistence, solidarity, unity, and all the ideas that Bakal recognized in the lively façade twenty years ago. The documentary does not mark the end of the story—it only completes one chapter—and Vitić will continue to dance.” – Andrea Stanić, “Social Choreography Behind the Lively Facade,” Kulturpunkt, May 9, 2023.

“Filmed predominantly in and around the building, often at tenant meetings, vividly edited – co-screenwriter (alongside Bakal) and editor Martin Semenčić – frequently propelled by the fast-paced jazz score of Be-Bop Dizzy Gillespie All Stars, the dynamic film is substantive, dedicated, enthusiastic, convincing, but without vilification or finger-pointing, it portrays the agony of a protracted, (excessively) complicated, exhausting process prolonged by incompetence, irresponsibility, sloppiness, vanity, malice… and greed. Human nature? There are honest, hardworking, and well-meaning people, but too few to cope with simply more numerous, mostly more stubborn and persistent wrongdoers who actually find it easier, because it is harder, isn’t it, to build and strive than to destroy and obstruct.” – Janko Heidl, “It’s Easier to Destroy than to Build,” Vijenac No. 765, June 29, 2023.

“Like the architect’s wife Nada, who danced through life with her husband, Bakal dances with Vitić’s house, a paradigmatic example of Croatian modernism. His move to temporarily inhabit Vitić’s building, to patiently build an atmosphere of community and restoration in a house literally crumbling, is almost unrealistically humanistic.” – Marina Pavković, economist and doctor of architecture, Facebook after the Šibenik premiere of the film, February 21, 2024.

Director: Boris Bakal 

Screenwriters: Boris Bakal, Martin Semenčić (Co-writer) 

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 (Co-editor) 

Composer: Stanko Juzbašić 

Producers: Boris Bakal, Adrijana Prugovečki, Tibor Keser, Ivan Kelava 

Production Company: Multimedia Arts Organization Shadow Casters 

Coproducers: Croatian Radiotelevision, 15 umjetnost 

Distribution: Radar d.o.o. 

Support: Croatian Audiovisual Centre, City of Zagreb – Office for Culture, EU Media