photo © Jože Rehberger Ogrin

The guests on the Manzioli square on the closing night of the festival

Well, this is it. Isola Cinema 2005 is at an end. In the official programme we have shown 30 films in seven sections, 4 short feature films and seven animations. On the punta, which was extraordinary lively this year, Video on the beach projections were shown, all 70 of them. Next to an encouraging response from the slovenian public, the festival has hosted 83 guests and 68 journalists. 130 people of the festival staff made sure Isola Cinema 2005 was as user friendly as possible.

6000 people visited the festival this year, plus an additional 1000 in all five nights of Video on the beach programme. The happy dv workshop produced 15 films, which were screened on the final day of the festival as part of Video on the Beach programme - but the best has yet to come - a documentary about 2005 edition of the festival, made to be screened on the public TV.

As was the situation last year, the audience had an opportunity to vote for the best feature film of this year’s Harvest section, which consists of films, shown on the open air cinema on the Manzioli square. This year’s winning film is Days and Hours (d. Pjer Žalica, BiH, 2004), which is now to be bought for regular distribution in slovenian cinemas.

And the weather? What can we say, it was just perfect. Five days of sunshine and temperature above 30 degrees. Shrimp was dry and comfy, punta very vibrant and heated and the stone walls of the Manzioli square pleasantly warm all through the evenings. As if someone up there made sure everything went as we hoped. And every slovenian film lover should have an idea who is working for the festival even now, even up there somewhere, for the last time.

Director Pjer Žalica gets the audience award from the mayoress of Izola Breda
Pečan.