experimental film
year: 2013
format: HD
duration: 23'
production: Pangolin
distribution: Bonobostudio
The film is based on a text book for learning Croatian as a foreign language "Croatian in Conversation", published in 1968. This book is aimed mainly at the Croatian diaspora and concerns the visit of an emigree family to Croatia in order to introduce their children to their “heritage”.
film by: Ana Hušman
director of photography: Ivan Slipčević
editing: Iva Kraljević
music: Tomislav Domes, Nenad Romić
sound design: Tomislav Domes
costumes: Oliver Juralić, Maja Krišković
producer: Ana Hušman
The curriculum for teaching Croatian as a foreign language emphasises the use of role play, drama, expressive reading, staging fairy tales, and reading and writing postcards. Combined with a textbook for learning Croatian as a foreign language and postcards sent from the United States to Croatia, these teaching methods become starting points for improvised situations performed by professional and amateur actors.
Ana Hušman's practice disassembles the structures and textures of cinematic elements through film, installation, books, sound, image and text. Hušman experiments with the possibilities of animation, documentary and fictional cinematic methods, and the possibilities of the recorded voice and its articulation. Her working process questions and plays with the positions of the amateur and the professional subject of performativity, the medium itself, and the structures that dictate and produce patterns of behavior. She is a lecturer at the Department of Animation and New Media at the Academy of Fine Art in Zagreb and co-founder of the documentary film organization RESTART where she has been holding film education programs for children and young people for many years.
Her works have been shown at festivals and exhibitions including: Gwangju Biennale, October Salon Belgrade, Medienturm Gallery Graz, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Arts Budapest, International Film Festival Rotterdam, DOK Leipzig.
A Room for Living (2018), I Love You, Ines (2017), Almost Nothing (2016), Postcards (2013); Football (2011); Lunch (2008); The Market (2006); Home (2003); for 2 (2003); Meršpajz (2003); Daily Progress (1999)
25FPS Festival (26/9-29/9/2013)
Alternative Film Video (10/12-14/12/2013)
Dortmund Cologne International Women's Film Festival (8/4-13/4/2014)
Experiments in Cinema, Albuquerque (14/4-20/4/2014)
Days of Croatian Film (22/4-27/4/2014)
Tabor Film Festival (10/6-15/6/2014)
Kratkofil Plus (23/7-27/7/2014)
Short Shorts Film Festival Mexico (4/9-10/9/2014)
Vox Feminae Festival (10/11-14/11/2014)
FLEX – Florida Experimental Film and Video Festival (19/2-22/2/2015)