The Constitution
| Director | Rajko Grlic |
| Producer | Ivan Maloca – Interfilm; Rudolf Biermann – In Film, Dejan Milosevski – Revolution Production, Jani Sever – Sever & Sever, Mike Downey, Sam Taylor – Film & Music Entertainment LTD, HRT, NP7 |
| Writer | Rajko Grlic, Ante Tomic |
| Cast | Nebojsa Glogovac, Ksenija Marinkovic, Dejan Acimovic, Bozidar Smiljanic, Mladen Hren |
| Editor | Andrija Zafranovic |
| Camera | Branko Linta h.f.s. |
| Screening | 2 November 2017 | 19:00 hours | Filmhuis Den Haag 7 November 2017 | 19:30 hours | Filmhuis Den Haag |
| Original Title | USTAV REPUBLIKE HRVATSKE |
| Year | 2016 |
| Length | 93 min |
| Country | Croatia, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Macedonia, Slovenia |
| Subtitles | English |
| Section | NEW VOICES – feature length films |
“Billed as a love story about hate, it’s a human story with all the ugliness and goodness that comes from being human”, Culture Spot LA. Dutch Premiere
Synopsis
Four very different people live in the same building but avoid each other because of their different lives, what they believe in, and where they come from. They would probably never exchange a word, but misfortune pushes them towards each other. Slowly, and even painfully, they begin to open up to each other and recognize the essential humanity they have. An extraordinary film that enjoyed critical and commercial success wherever it was shown for its profound and courageous portrait of increasing intolerance in Croatia, touching performances and masterful filmmaking by one of the greatest Croatian masters Rajko Grlic.
Festivals & Awards (selection)
Montreal World FF, 2016 – Grand Prize of the Americas | Slovenian FF, 2016 – Best Slovenian Co-Production, Best Costume Design | Santa Barbara IFF, 2017 – Best International Feature Film | Pula FF, 2017 – Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director of Photography, Fedeora European Film Critic Award | SEEfest, Los Angeles 2017 – Grand Jury Prize | European FF, 2017 – Audience Award, Best Screenplay, European Actor of the year (Nebojsa Glogovac)
Director’s statement
My wish is to make a film about the present moment in Croatian history, about its prevailing atmosphere of hatred and intolerance. Ante Tomic and I, as co-screenwriters who have quite extensive personal experiences with these attitudes, wish to tell that story through the lives of people who will never end up in newspapers or web portals, but thorough whom we can determine what the hatred thrives on and how it shapes people’s lives…If there is something I have learned from the films I have made, it is that every story can be understood beyond one’s own geographical area and one’s own mental space if it is deeply rooted in its reality, in its space and, above anything else, in the mentality it comes from. Plus, if it is not trying to flatter the ‘world’ by trying to simplify things in order to make them ‘more comprehensible’ for someone out there. Only when audience faces the real people on the screen, even if they see them as complete strangers at first, can they compare their own lives with the lives of the protagonists, turn the lives of the protagonists into their own lives, into their own loves and hatreds.