The seventeenth PSSST! Silent Film Festival ended with the awards ceremony on Saturday, November 4, 2023 at the Trešnjevka Cultural Center.

The judging panel of the competition program, composed of Dina Pokrajac, curator and film critic, and Ejla Kovačević, curator and film critic, awarded the Veliki Brcko prize to the animated film To Bird or Not to Bird, directed by Martín Romero (2023, Spain , 9’13”), with the following explanation:

In this year’s laureate, Shakespeare’s famous phrase becomes the starting point of an existentialist dilemma, but this time from a bird’s eye view, enabling the author to critically observe the modern world dominated by human beings, while birds only mirror their harmful habits, worries and obsessions. Through a sovereign use of animation techniques, the author creates a peculiar and grotesque ornithological microcosm in which the meaninglessness of everyday actions reaches absurd proportions. But at the same time, while the tragicomic bird hamlets balance on the see-saw between being important and non-important, he manages to see the humorous aspect of being. The impressive film experience was completed by the performance of pianist Vitomir Ivanjek, who with subtle variations of rhythm and tempo enhanced the elements of fear and suspense, voicing the animator’s dark forebodings and demonstrating that reality hides much more gruesome things than it seems at first glance. This year’s Veliko Brcko goes to the film “To Bird or Not to Bird” by the young Spanish illustrator, comic book author and director Martín Romero.

 

The audience award was won by the feature film Big, dir. Olga Dymskaya ( 2023, Russia, 17’35”).

 

In the competition program, 11 animated and 8 feature short films were shown. All screenings were accompanied live by top musical improvisers – Vitomir Ivanjek on the piano and Lela and Joe Kaplowitz. This year too, we had films that follow the original poetics of the silent film, and films from Spain and Germany dominated, but films from Russia, the USA, Great Britain, Czechia, Italy, Belgium, Slovenia and Croatia were also present. From experimental aesthetics to animated superhero films, from computer-generated dystopia to a humorous ride through the history of classical art, PSSST! has once again shown the variety of themes and styles of filmmakers.

Until next year PSSST! welcomes all visitors and film buffs and announces some more activities in the near future!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

PSSST! Silent Film Festival this year again approaches the silent film from two perspectives. On the one hand, we go back far into the past and show the audience the treasures created in the silent period of film art of the first half of the 20th century. Inspired by the fact that the festival takes place just a few days after Halloween, we have prepared a program of silent film classics dedicated to magic, witches and other things that are supernatural. Two films deal with witch hunts. The first of them, the most expensive Scandinavian silent film The Witches (1922) is a fantasy story, while Dreyer’s classic and regular member of the top list of the best films of all time The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is a factual story about the staged trial of the French heroine Joan of Arc. The witch is one of the stars of the Snow White fairy tale, and we will show her American adaptation from 1916, which supposedly inspired Disney for his feature-length animated debut. Carl Theodor Dreyer made sure not to deal only with witches with his classic Vampires (1932). We will talk about magic not only on the screen, but also live, which will be taken care of by Gornjogradske coprnice at the opening of the festival, which will reveal the mystical side of Zagreb to the citizens of Zagreb and tourists through guided tours. The day after that, expert in magic, Dr. sc. Tomislav Pletenac will hold a lecture.

Our traditional Croatian program this year is dedicated to silent films shot in Croatia by foreign cinematographers, and among them for the first time we will see the earliest recordings of Pula, Šibenik, Zadar, Rijeka and Zagorje! Researchers of Croatian silent film heritage, cinematographer Enes Midžić and film archivist Vjeran Pavlinić will talk about these films after the screening.

On the other hand, we approach the silent film from a contemporary and experimental perspective. For you, we have selected eighteen recent films of the competition program, with the original sound replaced by the accompaniment of our musicians. The best film of the program, winner of the Veliki Brcko award, will be chosen by a jury composed of young film critics and curators. The audience will also choose their best film. All films will be accompanied by excellent musicians who have been participating in our festival for years, pianist Vitomir Ivanjek, Šimun Matišić, Ivan Kapec, Hrvoje Galler and the Kaplowitz jazz duo.

Welcome to the 17th PSSST! silent film festival!

****

Rather unusual, rather trapped on the border between dream and reality, silent film has for several years found affirmation at the PSSST! Silent Film Festival organised by the Trešnjevka Cultural Centre.

PSSST! is a unique film festival presenting the art of silent film in a new, exciting and entertaining way. This Festival is a rare gem on the cultural scene which lacks initiatives offering artists the opportunity to try out their skills in this specific (and demanding!) artistic form.

The event confirms its status as a festival in the classic sense of the word through its competition programme in which contemporary “silent” titles are screened to an audience. The best film in the competition is awarded the Brcko Grand Prize, the official award of PSSST! named after the main character of Croatia’s first feature film Brcko in Zagreb made back in 1917.

But how many real silent films are made today, someone may rightfully ask? Certainly very few are made (although we can’t say none), and so we could ask the question – what is the point of the competition, what is the point of the Brcko Grand Prize? But the concept of this festival should be understood as a media experiment, created in the spirit of heterogeneity and the visual wealth of silent film. Authors can send films to PSSST! which they think could function and communicate even after we remove the original sound, and our festival is responsible for providing high-quality sound support, live music which will accompany the silent projection. Our expert improvisers cover a range of different genres and their hybrids – from rock via classical to jazz and electronic music, providing the audience with an interesting synaesthetic experience. This of course creates a film completely different from the original from which we removed the soundtrack, which is precisely why PSSST! is so exciting.

Apart from the competition programme, the Festival screens a rich selection of film classics from the golden era of silent film – masterpieces of Russian, Danish, Japanese and Swedish cinematography were already presented and this year we are dealing with the relation of psychoanalysis and silent film.

Silent film, with an expressive musical accompaniment, will lull you into a state of reverie. Its hypnotic power is not destroyed by the rude reality of the spoken word and so it becomes clear that dreams and silent films have much in common – they both deal with simple, direct emotions and action, such as love, hate, conflict or escape. This dimension of silent film emphasises its undying charm.

If you wish to open the door to a different world of unusual poetics again this year, come to PSSST! where the art of silent film lives on.