LGBT_SLO_1984

dir. BORIS PETKOVIC

DUTCH PREMIERE

What began in 1984, still goes on today: 35 years of the LGBT movement in Slovenia through the prism of activism and culture.

This archival documentary begins with the Magnus Gay Culture Festival, which was organised in 1984 in the legendary cultural centre SKUC Ljubljana, and which included the LGBT Film Festival — the first LGBT film festival in Europe. In the same year, the so-called “Magnus Section” — the first organised gay movement in the former Yugoslavia and probably in Eastern Europe as well — was established in the context of the SKUC-Forum, which brought together various alternative and civil social movements. The first years were characterised by club events (only of their kind in former Yugoslavia) and the organisation of events and festivals. The Slovenian LGBT movement became the most progressive movement of that time and is still active today in different forms and organisations.

LGBT_SLO_1984 | 2022 | 87 min | Slovenia

FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION) 

LGBT Film Festival 2022 | Liffe – Ljubljana International Film Festival, 2022 | Merlinka Festival, 2022

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

During the entire creative process, it was very important to me that the film is not reduced to a political pamphlet of the movement itself, but that it is placed within the wider social context. I was interested in two aspects: how the Slovenian LGBT movement developed under various types of pressure from various parts of society and how the activism and culture of the LGBT movement influenced the development of the LGBT community and the wider social sphere.

DIRECTOR’S BIO 

Boris Petkovič (1971) graduated from the Paris film school EICAR, where he also taught for the following three years. In 2008, he came to Ljubljana where he now works as a freelance film director. Petkovič’s filmography includes the national box-office hit Let Him Be a Basketball Player (2017), Balkan Whispers (2017), and The Beat of Love (2015).