23.LFF
Opatija
26.-30.08.2025.

Film

Once upon a youth

LFF19, In competition

LFF LAUREAT

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ABOUT THE MOVIE

Thirteen years after the unexpected death of his once best friend, the filmmaker tries to reconstruct his late friend’s life and their friendship, using just the photographs and video material his friend shot back then.

Ivan Ramljak

Ivan Ramljak (b. 1974) is a film director and independent curator. In 2003, he founded the Human Rights Film Festival Zagreb. From 2013 to 2022, he edited and hosted Short Tuesday, a short film program at the Tuškanac cinema in Zagreb, and from 2016 to 2023, he was the artistic director of the Tabor Film Festival. Since 2022, he has been one of the short film selectors at the Rotterdam Film Festival, as well as a scout for feature films from the former Yugoslavia. So far, he has directed 9 shorts, 1 medium-length film and 3 feature films, mostly of a documentary nature. His films "Islands of Forgotten Cinemas", "Home of the Resistance", "Mezostajun", "Once Upon a Youth" and "El Shatt - Blueprint For Utopia" have been screened at more than 80 festivals around the world (IFFR, Cinéma du Réel, DOK Leipzig, Sarajevo FF, DokuFest...), where they won a number of awards.

Title: Once upon a youth
Year of production: 2020
Duration: 78
Director: Ivan Ramljak
Screenplay: Ivan Ramljak
Photography: Marko Čaklović
Editing: Ivor Šonje
Sound design: Borna Buljević
Production: Matej Merlić
Production company: Akademija dramske umjetnosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Coproduction: O jednoj mladosti