Surrounded by powerful neighbors, with a population of barely two million and a language spoken only by its inhabitants, Slovenia has struggled for centuries to keep its own identity and culture. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from the 14th century to the end of World War I, when it was included in the newly founded "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes," a political unit created at the Versailles Peace Conference that was later renamed Yugoslavia. During World War II, Slovenia was invaded and partitioned among Austria, Hungary and Italy. Afterwards, it was incorporated into Tito's Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where it became the country's most prosperous and developed region. On June 25, 1991, the Republic of Slovenia declared its independence.

With this turbulent history, it's remarkable that Slovenia has maintained a national cinema at all. Yet film, which first appeared in the capital Ljubljana as early as 1896, thrived within the Socialist republic. Triglav Film, Slovenia's first major film studio, was founded in 1947, and within a few years was producing popular domestic comedies such as VESNA.

Slovenian films, currently averaging about six to eight a year, have also become an increasingly familiar presence at international film festivals. The Slovenian Film Fund has been essential in fostering this remarkable growth, helping create a new generation of filmmakers. As a result, Slovenia has become an uplifting and inspiring success story for the cinemas of other small nations.

At the Crossroads: Slovenian Cinema is presented by AFI Silver in collaboration and with major support from the Slovenian Film Fund. The series was programmed by Richard Peña, Film Society of Lincoln Center, and organized by Irena Kovarova, independent film programmer. Additional support provided by The Consulate General of Slovenia. Special thanks to Consul General Alenka Suhadolnik and Nerina T. Kocjancic, Head of Promotion, Slovenian Film Fund.

All film notes courtesy of Film Society of Lincoln Center. All films NOT RATED

AFI Member passes will be accepted at all screenings in the Slovenian Cinema series.

BENEATH HER WINDOW
[Pod njenim oknom]

Dusa is a 30-something dance instructor whose life is in a rut. Involved with a married man, she'd like to break away but fears being alone. She's not helped by the example of her mother, who takes on a new boyfriend each time she needs household repairs done. Then Dusa suspects that she's being stalked--that someone is not only following her but also going into her apartment. After all, her drain was clogged, and now it's not...

DIR/SCR Metod Pevec; PROD Danijel Hocevar. Slovenia, 2003, color, 91 min. In Solvenian with English subtitles.

Saturday, November 8, 12:00; Friday, November 14, 5:00, 7:00 - Just Added!

DANCE IN THE RAIN
[Ples v dezju]

A former assistant to Claude Chabrol, director Bostjan Hladnik returned to his native Slovenia to make this fascinating New Wave-influenced meditation on coming to terms with your own desires. Peter (Miha Baloh), a painter who earns his living as a teacher, thinks back to the years he has wasted personally and artistically. He has grown tired of his affair with a middle-aged actress, Marusa (Dusa Pockaj), who for her part seems determined to go on with the relationship despite her lover's indifference.

DIR/SCR Bostjan Hladnik; SCR Dominik Smole. Yugoslavia, 1961, b&w, 100 min. In Slovenian with English subtitles.

Monday, November 10, 5:00; Monday, November 17, 5:00

GUARDIAN OF THE FRONTIER
[Varuh meje]

A trio of stunning students on summer break, bored with partying, decides to take a canoe trip down the river Kolpa. Their pleasure cruise becomes a journey into fear, tinged perhaps with the supernatural, when the young women discover that the woods hide not only the border between Slovenia and Croatia, but also that between the permissible and the forbidden. An erotic and menacing fairy tale as well as a dazzling debut by Maja Weiss. The director's eye is as keen for color, fantasy, politics and landscape as it is for contemporary life in her country.

DIR/SCR Maja Weiss; SCR Zoran Hocevar, Brock Norman Brock; PROD Ida Weiss. Slovenia/Germany/France, 2002, color, 100 min. In Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles.

Wednesday, November 12, 8:45; Thursday, November 20, 9:15

IDLE RUNNING
[V leru]

Taking a page from the Jim Jarmusch notebook, first-time director Janez Burger elicits winning performances from his young cast and resourcefully fashions a quirky and mature low-budget film about the consequences of avoiding life. The cynical, conveniently lazy and seductive Dizzy (played by co-screenwriter Jan Cvitkovic) is a veteran student living a campus life of boozing, snoozing and watching TV. His life of no commitment and barely a dream for the future is interrupted when Marko, a serious freshman from the countryside, moves into his room--with his pregnant girlfriend in tow. A beautifully realized study of self-discovery that is both funny and touching, with characters who are immediately recognizable to anyone who's ever set foot in a college dorm.

DIR/SCR Janez Burger; SCR Jan Cvitkovic; PROD Danijel Hocevar. Slovenia, 1999, b&w, 90 min. In Slovenian with English subtitles.

Tuesday, November 11, 5:00; Tuesday, November 18, 5:00

RAFT OF THE MEDUSA
[Splav meduze]

Karpo Acimovic-Godina, one of Yugoslavia's most talented cinematographers, moved to directing with this wry look at the arrival of the aesthetic revolution in the just-founded "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes"--soon to be known as Yugoslavia. Kristina and Ljiljana, two young schoolteachers working in the provinces, fear that they'll eventually die of boredom. Then an avant-garde troupe of artists from Belgrade arrives in town, preaching the gospels of new art movements called Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism--not to mention their own homemade brew, "Zenithism." The troupe outrages the locals while delighting the teachers. When an epidemic closes down their school, they throw their lots in with the artists, now joined by the "Strongest Man in the Balkans." Godina loads his film with echoes of Dadaist and Surrealist films, and he powerfully renders both the idealism and naivete of characters who truly believe that making art is a way of making a revolution.

DIR Karpo Acimovic-Godina; SCR Branko Vucicevic. Yugoslavia, 1980, color, 101 min. In Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles.

Wednesday, November 12, 5:00; Wednesday, November 19, 5:00

SPARE PARTS
[Rezervni deli]

In the shadow of the nuclear reactor in Krsko, southern Slovenia, Ludvik (Peter Musevski) runs a thriving trafficking operation, transporting whoever has one thousand euros to pay him to the border of Italy. His new helpmate Rudi seems shocked by the business, but he and Ludvik gradually form a tenuous bond. Damjan Kozole, perhaps the best-known Slovenian director internationally, is less interested in denouncing the activities of his characters than he is in plunging us into their world--the endless round of back roads, abandoned warehouses and roadside diners that make up Ludvik's day-to-day reality.

DIR/SCR Damjan Kozole; PROD Danijel Hocevar. Slovenia, 2003, color, 87 min. In Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles.

Thursday, November 13, 5:00; Saturday, November 15, 12:45; Thursday, November 20, 5:00

SWEET DREAMS
[Sladke sanje]

Based on a screenplay by popular Slovenian novelist Miha Mazzini, who claimed that he was writing a portrait of a generation with this film, SWEET DREAMS is set in Yugoslavia in the early 1970s when the American cultural invasion had just begun. Thirteen-year-old Egon is just a little bit behind everyone else, culturally speaking. His great goal in life is to get a record player, and the local shop has just the one he wants--if he can somehow convince his mother to buy it for him. A rich, revealing chronicle of an era, Saso Podogorsek's second film charts Egon's attempt to find his own way among his family, hippies, schoolmates, teachers, Communists and dissidents.

DIR Saso Podgorsek; SCR Miha Mazzini; PROD Franci Zajc. Slovenia, 2001, color, 110 min. In Slovenian with English subtitles.

Thursday, November 13, 7:00; Wednesday, November 19, 9:00

VESNA

One of the best loved of all Slovenian films--the national film award is actually called the Vesna in the film's honor--this surprisingly gentle college comedy was a huge hit that helped put Slovenia's just founded film studio Triglav Film on the cinematic map. A group of college students spend their days looking for ways to get out of studying for their upcoming finals. They can't help but notice Vesna, the pretty daughter of an especially tough mathematics professor. When Vesna discovers that one of them, Samo, was courting her only to catch a glimpse of her father's final exam, she breaks off the relationship. But Samo is not so readily deterred. Although made in the newly Socialist Yugoslavia, the film does not hint at class struggle: everyone is fashionably dressed, eating well and living in well-appointed houses or apartments. Veteran Czech director Frantisek Cap, who had immigrated to Yugoslavia after Tito's break with Stalin, went on to have a successful career in his adopted country.

DIR/SCR Frantisek Cap; SCR Matej Bor. Yugoslavia, 1953, b&w, 93 min. In Slovenian with English subtitles.

Friday, November 7, 5:00; Sunday, November 16, 9:30