This Sunday, November 3, "Mali", a crime drama by Antonio Nuić, is coming to the Kino Zona. For those viewers who value films solely by the number of festival awards won, suffice it to say that "Small" is a film that won the "big" Pula last year. For those viewers who care especially for typical festivals, we can openly say that Nuić's film is completely atypical. It is primarily a drama, true, but with picturesque hints of crime.
It is worth mentioning that this film is a kind of continuation of the story about the characters that Nuić first revealed to us in his debut short film, more precisely, a fragment of the 2004 omnibus called "Sex, Drink and Bloodshed". There they may have been hiding under other names, but trust me, it’s them, just the more mature ones. The baby in that story is now the boy Mali (Vita Dijak's excellent acting debut) whose father Frankie (played by Vit's real father Franjo) tries his best to convince social services that he deserves custody of him, now that his wife has died of cancer. Of course, this will not be an easy task as Frankie has only recently been released from prison where he has been ‘peeling’ for four years for drug dealing.
Nuic has definitely shown here that it is not bad to make a domestic film under the strong influence of the Americans, especially if those influences are names like Scorsese or Singer (specifically, his crime masterpieces "Usual Suspects") and even Linklater (periodic return to old characters ). Moreover, "Mali" is definitely the best Nuić's film so far, which with safe direction, directed story, excellent acting and camera (Radoslav Jovanović Gonzo) evokes respect and invites to watch. What more can we say than, come, Sunday, November 3, the hall of the Rector's Palace at 8 p.m. Kino Zona is calling you!
