Čao Bela

by Jani Sever

Čao Bela, fiction
Principal photography
SI

Bela faces the challenge of establishing a new relationship with her absent mother at a crucial time—when she starts secondary school. This causes her to reflect on the relationships she has taken for granted as well as on the relationships she is re-establishing. For Bela and her friends, the band they form represents freedom and a confession of their world-view. The search for meaning and the creation of the band raises the question of collaboration and independence at the same time. Bela is a heroine who, with her active attitude to life and with the help of her friends and music, successfully overcomes her first major life crisis. A crisis which, in extreme moments, leads her to try drugs and self-harm. Ciao Bela is a musical youth drama about fundamental family relationships, initiation into secondary school, first experiences of love, about finding oneself, about the path to independence and about overcoming the obstacles that life throws up. Ciao Bela is a film about teenagers today, about the problems they face, but above all about their search for self-expression.

screenwriter
Jani Sever
director
Jani Sever
producer
Nina Jeglič
director of photography
Darko Herič
music composers
Ana Đurić, Milovan Bošković
featuring
Krešimir Mikić, Alisa Milićević, Gaja Mazvita Strauss Tihaolang, Maša Slapar, Luka Lukša, Laura Prajs, Brin Strnad Volkar, France Mandić, Ana Urbanc, Suzana Krevh, Neža Buh, Maruša Geymayer Oblak
production
Sever & Sever
co-funding
RTV Slovenija, Slovenian Film Centre, Film Studio Viba Film
Jani Sever

Jani Sever (1963), a former journalist and editor-in-chief (1996-2006) of the leading Slovenian political weekly Mladina, works as a producer, director, and screenwriter. He has produced more than ten documentaries and fiction features, five shorts, a TV and a web series, as well as directed Status Zero (2016), a documentary about unemployed youth; and Pero Lovšin – You Can (2018), a documentary about the first East European punk star. His last documentary film Antigone - How dare we!, (2020) won Best Documentary Award at the Slovenian Film Festival.

Sever & Sever film production company was established in 2011 by the producer, screenwriter and director Jani Sever and producer Nina Jeglič. Sever & Sever produces documentaries as well as fiction and short movies. The company has collaborated with many young film artists. The creative team of Sever & Sever production house has made 13 feature films, six short films and 2 TV series.