Hug

by Miroslav Mandić

Objem, 2023, experimental, documentary, digital DCP, c, 14 min
Finished

SI, HR

An olive is floating on the sea surface. We perceive it through image, sound and music. We personify it, seeking our own essence, urged by our anthropocentricity. The waves overflowing the rocks remind us of human breathing. But Nature thinks and feels differently. To her we are only one of the elements and certainly not the central one. A branch falls to the ground; a human hand grabs the fruit. Olive oil flowing in an oil mill competes with the sea waves. The vines swallow an old tree like a hand gradually strangling it. Is an embrace between nature and humans truly an expression of love?

screenwriter
Miroslav Mandić
director
Miroslav Mandić
producer
Tina Glavič Novak
directors of photography
Tina Glavič Novak, Ivan Perić, Miroslav Mandić
music composers
Darko Rundek, Ana Kovačić
film editor
Andrej Nagode
sound designers
Julij Zornik, Samo Jurca

production
Hupa Brajdič - KUD Center 21
co-production
Udruga Kazimir, Filmostovje
co-funding
Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Slovenian Film Centre
distribution
Hupa Brajdič - KUD Center 21

Hupa Brajdič produkcija
Tina Glavič Novak
tinagn@gmail.com

Miroslav Mandić was born in Sarajevo. He graduated in film directing and screenwriting from Columbia University in New York. After a brief career in his native Bosnia and Herzegovina, he emigrated to the Czech Republic during the war of the 1990s, where he directed numerous documentaries. Since 2005 he has lived and worked in Slovenia. Mandić wrote and directed Borderline lovers (2005, feature documentary), which premiered at Locarno IFF and won Golden Letter Award for best documentary at Munchen FF and Human Rights Award at Sarajevo FF. His fiction features Adria Blues (2013) and I Act, I am (2018) premiered at Karlovy Vary FF and Cairo FF, respectively. His latest fiction feature Sanremo (2020) has been screened at more than 20 international festivals, including Tallinn, Sao Paolo, Shanghai, Seattle and Melbourne. Sanremo was a Slovenian candidate for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.