Production company 4Film announced on Sunday that the feature film Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, written and directed by Ivona Juka, had won the top prize for Best Film at the Galway Film Fleadh, Ireland’s most important film festival.
This marks the film’s 22^(nd) international award, having been selected for almost 50 film festivals to date. Its previous accolades include nine audience awards, and the film was also Croatia’s submission for the 97th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category.
This major international recognition comes ahead of the film’s premiere screening for Croatian audiences tonight as part of the main programme at the Pula Film Festival in the Pula Arena.
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day tells an emotional and powerful story about artists, freedom, love and repression in post-war Yugoslavia. Set in 1957, the film depicts a period when artistic freedom and personal identities were being forged under the pressure of the political system. At the heart of the story are four filmmakers whose private and professional lives become intertwined with the repressive mechanisms of a society that does not tolerate difference.
The film features some of the most prominent names in regional acting, including Emir Hadžihafizbegović, Dado Ćosić, Slaven Došlo, Đorđe Galić, Elmir Krivalić, Marko Braić, Anja Šovagović Despot, Enes Vejzović, Goran Grgić, Dražen Čuček, Svetozar Cvetković, Voja Brajović, Milica Mihajlović, Ivana Boban and Mislav Čavajda.
The creative team behind the project includes cinematographer Dragan Ruljančić, editor Nenad Pirnat, production designer Zvonko Sarić, costume designer Goranka Krpan, and make-up artist Ana Bulajić Črček. The score was composed by Golden Globe-nominated composer Michael Brook.
The film was produced by Anita Juka for 4Film, the production company behind such internationally acclaimed titles as Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, which was screened at Sundance and the Berlinale; Emin Alper’s Burning Days, which was screened at Cannes; Maksym Nakonechnyi’s Butterfly Vision, which was also screened at Cannes; and Ivona Juka’s You Carry Me. The latter premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and became the first film from the region to be acquired by Netflix for worldwide distribution, as well as being Croatia’s submission for the Academy Awards.
