Radmila Djurica

The first international day pays  tribute to Silvan Furlan, and it is the way how Kino Otok joins the 60th anniversary of one of the first supporters of the festival. The The first international screening day of 9th Kino Otok Isola, the 6th of June brought to light a wonderful story from the history of European Cinematography, with a documentary directed by Silvan Furlan, founder of Slovenian Cinematheque, a film journalist, filmmaker and screenwriter from Slovenia, Deklica s Furnikulami/The Girl with the Marbles. It is a skillful documentary about first Slovenian actress who has managed to become a real movie star in European film, Ita Rina. Rina was the celebrated diva of early German and Check film in 1920s and 1930s. She starred in films of a prominent film studio in Prague, Paris, Berlin and twice refused the invitation from Hollywood. This poetic documentary drama revives the myth and the great courage of a woman, born in Slovenia into a pursuit of her career, instead of family, with life set on a harsh Catholic upbringing, in the early days of the 20th Century. Rina’s most well known role dates 1929, at Erotikon/Eroticon, first erotic silent Check film in history. 1931 Rina becomes known in Serbia due to her marriage with an engineer from Serbia not a filmmaker, which resulted the end of a movie star career. The film revives the life of Rina, a great star via documentary photos and very well chosen film scenes from early German and Check Cinematography.

The rest of the evening there was dedicated to an actual silent film Erotikon/Eroticon, first Check silent erotic film in history directed by Gustav Machaty, a Check who assisted to Griffith and Stroheim in Hollywood in 1920 and the man who first celebrated nude and at that time unknown Hedy Lamarr in the film Ecstasy/extras in 1933.  For those who do not know and are curious the film is in fact, a pioneering work of a first cinematic eroticism and in fact the first avant/garde classic of silent cinema, first time, with no usual melodrama, but sensuality and decadence of 1920s. The film is actually a bitter moralistic drama, where the director first time focuses on a female sensuality.   

More about Kino Otok Isola coming soon.