My world is upside down ( press kit) film by Petra Seliškar

MY WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN (2016)

(Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia) 74’

Written and directed by: Petra Seliškar DoP: Brand Ferro Editors: Dorijan Milovanovik, Vladimir Gojun Sound designer: Vladimir Rakić Music producer: Chris Eckman Co-producers: Oliver Sertić, Petrula Veljanovska Producers: Petra Seliškar, Brand Ferro Production companies: Petra Pan Film, PPFP, Restart Financed by: The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, Macedonian Film Agency and HAVC Croatian Audiovisual Centre

Logline: Music documentary based on a multi-hyphenate artist with serious brain damage called reason Short synopsis: A music documentary based on the work of Slovenian artist Frane Milčinski – Ježek. His satirical poems and songs from the 1950s and 60s today sound more urgent and topical than ever, and are covered by musicians ranging from Finnish avant-garde accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen, to legendary Croatian songstress Josipa Lisac, to the former Bad Seed Hugo Race. The music is produced by indie rock icon Cris Eckman (The Walkabouts), and expertly mixed with archive footage of Ježek’s own performances and skits, creating a touching and thoughtprovoking narrative.

Long synopsis A music documentary based on the work of Slovenian artist Frane Milčinski – Ježek. His satirical poems and songs from the 1950s and 60s today sound more urgent and topical than ever, and are covered by musicians ranging from Finnish avant-garde accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen, to legendary Croatian songstress Josipa Lisac, to the former Bad Seed Hugo Race. The music is produced by indie rock icon Cris Eckman (The Walkabouts), and expertly mixed with archive footage of Ježek’s own performances and skits.

Formed in this manner, they create a touching and thought-provoking narrative, taking us on a journey from birth in Ježek’s poem Mother Sea, performed by Pohjonen; through childhood (For the Naughty Children), to romance in Simple Love performed by Eckman; challenges and joys of youth (A Glass of Wine), and loss of a parent in the touching E Lon La Ler, sang by Cesare Basile and composed by John Bonnar of Dead Can Dance; a convincing image of Ježek’s humanistic and humble philosophy in A Prisoner’s Ode to the Bedbug, performed by Josipa Lisac and composed by Slovenian bassist Jani Hece; protest against authority and a call to pacifism in Darwin Was Wrong, rocked out by Macedonian punkers Bernays Propaganda; to the inevitable end in a beautiful fado rendition of Marcia Funebre, by Madredeus founder Teresa Salgueiro.

These innovative performances are infused with Ježek’s spirit throughout and simultaneously describe the life of a singularly original and timeless artist, and life of all creative people who will recognize themselves in this magical journey. This also includes artists such as the legendary and recently departed Slovenian singersongwriter Tomaž Pengov, a stalwart of Americana Robert Fisher and The Willard Grant Conspiracy, Macedonian guitar maestro Toni Kitanovski and the Gypsy outfit Cherkezi Orchestra, and British alt-rock staple John Parish.

FRANE MILČINSKI – JEŽEK (1914 – 1988) Slovenian poet, satirist, comedian, actor, writer, scriptwriter, musician Frane Milčinski – Ježek (1914–1988) is without a doubt the most important Slovenian humorist and satirist. The third child of judge and author Fran Milčinski, one of Slovenia’s greatest storytellers, at an early age Ježek got involved in theatre and began performing on stage.

He started working at Radio Ljubljana in 1936, and he was on the team that developed the first test programmes for Slovenian Television in 1958.

Ježek was the author of the first radio play ever in Slovenian language, Steep Stairs, as well as the first Slovenian radio play for children, Twinkle Sleepyhead (1952), which was later adapted into a puppet play, translated into several languages and performed on stage in numerous countries. The same year the feature film Kekec, which he co-scripted with director Jože Gale and starred in, won the Golden Lion for Best Youth Film at the Venice Film Festival. He acted in seven feature films, including Frantisek Cap’s Vesna (1953), a seminal work of Slovenian cinema, and France Kosmac’s Good Old Piano (1959), based on Ježek’s own radio play.

Luck lives on the seventh floor, The elevator is broken so we have to walk.

And finally, when at last we are in front of its door, We read a note: I’m not home.

He wrote a myriad of sketches, short stories, poems, songs, chansons, couplets and adverts, directed, acted in and hosted numerous entertainment programs on TV. He is today regarded as the founder of Slovenian chanson, and the first Slovenian modern singer-songwriter.

In addition to many other honors, in 1975 he received the Prešeren Award for Lifetime Achievement, Slovenia’s highest decoration in the field of arts. After his death in 1988, RTV Slovenia established the annual Ježek Award for original artistic achievements creation for radio or TV, which follow Ježek’s spirit.

Throughout his life, Ježek remained a man for the people, and through his performances and humor always clearly displayed his love for the humankind. On the other hand, he was always very critical of the society, rejecting both the populist wisdom and authoritarian power and vanity. His view of life is perfectly captured in his foreword to poem The Prisoner’s Ode to the Bedbug, wonderfully performed for this film by Josipa Lisac and Jani Hace: “You know, I like this life very much. Some people don’t believe me, but that’s the way it is. I don’t know why, but I love it. Maybe it’s because I don’t expect too much from the world, and least of all what it cannot give me. Look – this is what I’m like: if I don’t have a ladybird, if needs be, a bedbug will do.”

Everything is beautifully wrong in my world, and because it’s wrong, It is right.

INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR:

PETRA SELIŠKAR What does Ježek mean to you and what is his significance today?

For me, Ježek is an artist. A man who receives input from his surrounding and transforms his ideas and knowledge in a simple and precise way. He is the mirror of society. He is the person that made me think about the meaning of life. He encouraged me to insist, create, and fight for my beliefs. By watching his TV shows as a child I recognized my inner need to create.

Ježek sincerely loved the humankind, he loved people in the simplest and purest way. This view of the world does not seem to be popular today, everybody will rather be cynical, saying things like, “I don’t like people, I like animals”- well, sure, animals give love not demanding anything in return. Besides, we want to be left alone and we are getting paranoid, we flinch from the human touch. Ježek’s love is simple, unburdened by ideology or philosophy, it is not a just hippie pose. He understood people, and he loved them and accepted their shortcomings and defects, as opposed to loving them for their virtues. He was an artist who, just like a loyal dog, gave back to the humankind regardless of consequences.

We as a society seem to have lost this way of thinking and feeling. We have the tendency to either overpraise good things, or to just hate things the majority around us considers bad, without a moment of reflection. Perhaps it’s a part of our copy/paste consciousness, we have lost the real critical thinking. But Ježek is pure, he knows there is no room for critical thinking when it comes to things you cannot change, and human nature is one of those things.

His critical thinking was reserved for the society itself, and its rules and traditions. Ježek shows how you can love the humankind and be critical of society and the system.

How did you develop the project and why did it take eight years to finish it?

We were very enthusiastic at the beginning. We got the rights to use Ježek’s works in 2008, from his sons Matija and Matevž, and very soon we got funding from the Slovenian Ministry of Culture. Almost all the musicians we asked agreed to work with us, but it took almost three years for them to go through our suggestions and pick the right songs for themselves, because they were all touring all the time. After that it seems we inherited Ježek’s karma: the thing he hated most of all was bureaucracy, and we got stuck in a clinch with bureaucrats at TV Slovenia and Ministry of Culture.

Like in Ježek’s time during Yugoslavia, in Slovenia there are still remnants of the old system, people who act like soldiers in the name of bureaucracy, predominantly to keep their work places. We fought with help of lawyers to save the archive materials. 80% of it was lost but the 20% that we saved was in a terrible condition. It was a lot of work to restore those materials.

Although it’s amazing how hard a process Brand Ferro and I went through to finish this film, but I have to say, if it wasn’t for Ježek himself and his poems that always struck the exactly right chord whenever we encountered problems and made us laugh, we would have given up long ago. In the end we got additional funding from the Macedonian Film Fund and Croatian Audiovisual Centre (with help from our Croatian co-producer Restart).

Without them, the film would definitely not look the way it does.

How did you select the songs for the film from such a large oeuvre? And how did you pick the musicians?

Maybe I’m just crazy and persistent enough, and I know that good people and important musicians always recognize a good intention and energy, and simply believe in people who have a vision. I wanted a reaction from modern artists, musicians I like and feel are close to Ježek’s spirit.

It all started when Chris Eckman and I met and agreed to work on the poems. They existed in English only in very bad translations, so together we spent a lot of time with me explaining to him not only the lyrics, but also the social context of the songs. There are so many of them and they are all so good, so we cut the selection down to 30 songs, and then tried to see which of them are adaptable. Ježek’s language is, after all, archaic and local, so it’s not only about translation, it’s also about trying out which song can be sang in another language.

This process was a lot of fun. How to explain to an American those socialist values and state of mind, and way of thinking? We had some great conversations about the differences between us and them.

So we intuitively chose to ask some of Chris’s friends, and others, like Josipa Lisac, John Parish, Toni Kitanovski, Kimmo Pohjonen, Bernays Propaganda, we simply invited. No one said no. Why would they? They added a music layer to his lyrics, and together we brought him back to life.

INTERVIEW WITH MUSIC PRODUCER:

CHRIS ECKMAN How did your collaboration with Petra start?

I think Petra and I were first introduced by Rok Zavrtanik from Sanje publishing. Sanje has the rights to JeŞek’s texts so Petra was in touch with them about that. At the same time, I had just released my album Last Side of the Mountain, which was based on the poetry of Dane Zajc, with Sanje. Petra was looking for someone to help with the translations and to be a musical collaborator on her project, and I guess my name was suggested.

Since moving to Slovenia, you composed music for various local films, but this was a very different task. Who picked the musicians/bands and how did they split the songs?

We really worked as a team on this. Petra and Brand already had a wish list of artists that they wanted when we first met. And of course I know many musicians personally, so we just started contacting people to see who might be interested. As far as the song selection, it was really uncanny. We gave everyone who we contacted, most of translated texts and the crazy thing was, almost everyone, except for Kimmo and Toni, chose different songs. That made it very easy. Everyone found the song that worked best for them.

How did you make the narrative concept in relation to the selection of songs and wide variety of musicians?

We felt from the beginning that the film would be stronger if the artists themselves led the narrative. There was really very little coaching or conceptual discussion. We picked the artists based on their enthusiasm and on their artistic vision. We didn’t really see any reason to interfere with that. So yes, the film emphasises the disparate visions of the artists but also the deep variety of Ježek’s artistic methods and perspectives. Ježek used all sorts of dramatic tropes: satire, slapstick, sarcasm, melancholy and pathos. And the musical artists do the same…they are interpreting the texts in very a variety of different ways.

You composed music for many films that tackle important social and political issues. How do you see Ježek’s view of the world from today’s perspective?

I think he is completely contemporary and has much to say about our immediate political moment. Ježek was all about critical perspective. Not accepting the “way things are,” rejecting both populist wisdom and authoritarian power and vanity. His texts argue for clear thinking and real emotions. One can fantasize about putting Ježek and Trump in a room together. It wouldn’t be pretty. Ježek would destroy him.

I don’t care for satellites, I don’t care for rocket ships.

I just want a bottle that is endless.

Mother Sea Kimmo Pohjonen (Finland) An accordion adventurist, internationally known for revolutionizing accordion music, sound and performance. Also screenwriter and actor.

The elements of this text - birth, life, rebirth, sea, water... They exist in music even before it is composed. They exist inside my accordion.

Blindfold Over the Eyes TomaŞ Pengov (Slovenia) (1949–2014) One of the most important Slovenian singersongwriters. His album Odpotovanja from 1973 is considered the first independently released record in Yugoslavia. This song for this film is the last thing he recorded before his death.

You ambushed me. But it is a sweet ambush.

Simple Love Chris Eckman and Last Side of the Mountain Band (USA/Slovenia) If I am silent, I speak the loudest.

A Bottle Without End Robert Fisher and The Willard Grant Conspiracy (USA) Fisher’s work over the past 20 years as a leader of alt-country collective The Willard Grant Conspiracy is one of those typical “best kept secrets” of alternative music.

Songs gain their own history and elements, affected by all kind of influences, just like people do.

A Glass of Wine John Parish (UK) One of alternative rock’s great enablers, a man whose way of creating can greatly enhance another artist’s material. He worked with PJ Harvey, Tracy Chapman and Sparklehorse, among others.

Ježek deals with big subjects but in a deliberately naive way. He plants a little seed and hopefully it takes root.

E Lon La Ler Cesare Basile (Italy) Music: John Bonnar (UK) Basile is a great songwriter and singer from Catania, whose genre area covers the ground between indie rock, folk, blues, alt-country and Italian traditionals.

Bonnar is a composer best known for his work with Dead Can Dance and Brian Eno. Prisoner’s Ode to the Bedbug Josipa Lisac (Croatia) and Jani Hace (Slovenia) Lisac is one of the biggest stars of Croatian popular scene. Her albums The Diary of One Love (1973), Vixen (1982) and Goddess (1987) are considered benchmarks of Yugoslav pop music.

Hace is a Slovenian bass player, producer and composer, best known as bassist for one of Slovenia’s most popular contemporary bands Siddhartha.

Humour is the best way to speak critically about your life and society that surrounds you.

Whiskey Johnny Hugo Race and The True Spirit (Australia) Race is a teenage founding member of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds. Also screenwriter and actor.

Darwin Was Wrong Bernays Propaganda (Macedonia) A young Macedonian danceable new wave/ post-punk band with a charming female vocal, and strong political attitude.

Ježek’s philosophy is about putting the history of a common man above the history made by ‘great men’, who are imposed on us through force.

Marcia Funebre Teresa Salgueiro Founder of Madredeus, the most internationally acclaimed Portuguese group ever.

When we are dead, people can say that we were great, and we cannot complain. But when we were alive, that is when we needed to love and to be loved.

Mother Sea Toni Kitanovski & Cherkezi Orchestra (Macedonia) Kitanovski is a Macedonian guitarist, composer/arranger, bandleader and educator, most often working with Cherkezi Orchestra, a Gypsy wedding band, comprising highly educated contemporary musicians.

When you blend diverse musical elements it is important to find similarities and build a core for them, and the core were JeŞek’s words.

I am not an artist. I am just a kind of utility service, something available for people’s daily use. I would just like to be an ordinary clown for ordinary people.

I’d like to be a jester to His Majesty, the Human.

PETRA SELIŠKAR

Director, screenwriter, producer Petra Seliškar (b.1978 in Ljubljana) is a director, producer, writer and archive researcher. She has the ability to clearly see importance in hidden details, and through them, the essence in art, culture, nature, and all aspects of life. That is why she dedicated her time on this planet to life’s little pleasure, and of course, cinema.

Seleced filmography: Perfect Circle – Co-producer (documentary directed by Claudia Tosi), 2015 - Festival dei Popoli Florence, Trieste FF, Docpoint Helsinki Mama Europa – Director, producer (documentary), 2013 - Trieste FF, Rotterdam IFF, Sarajevo FF, ZagrebDox, DokuFest Prizren, Best Documentary at Tuzla FF 18 Meals – Second Unit Director (feature by Jorge Coira), 2010 - Best Director at Taormina IFF, Audience Award and Jury Prize at Ourense Independent FF, Guadalajara IFF, Cartagena FF Mostar United – Co-producer (documentary by Claudia Tosi), 2008 - Sarajevo FF, Prix Europa nomination The Grandmothers of the Revolution – Director, producer (documentary), 2006 - IDFA, Jihlava IDFF, Sarajevo FF, Small Stamp at ZagrebDox, Grand Prix at Asterfest Strumica Turkish Tea – Director, producer (Documentary series), 2005

CHRIS ECKMAN (US) Music producer

If I am silent, I speak the loudest.

Chris Eckman (b. 1960 in Norfolk, Virginia) is an American signer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, soundtrack composer and music producer, who became famous as a founding member and co-vocalist of the Seattle-based band The Walkabouts. Formed in 1983, The Walkabouts have released over 15 albums, and worked with Brian Eno, Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Warren Ellis (Nick Cave/Dirty Three), the Tindersticks, Mark Lanegan and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a solo musician, he released three albums, and worked on many other projects including Dirtmusic (with Hugo Race and Chris Brokaw), L/O/N/G (a duo with Rupert Huber from Tosca), Ljubljana-based band The Frictions, The Strange (collaboration with The Bambi Molesters, for whom he also produced records), and Chris & Carla (duo project with Walkabouts singer and co-founding member Carla Torgerson).

As a producer, Eckman worked with musicians and bands such as Steve Wynn, Andrea Schroeder, Midnight Choir, Draumir, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Terry Lee Hale, Ainara Le Gardon, Shilff, My Buddy Moose, Raindogs, Silvertongue, Big Sleep, Slovenia’s Vlado Kreslin, Brina, Pinela, Hic et Nunc. In the past seven years, he has been particularly active producing records with musicians from Mali.

Eckman also made music for numerous films, especially in Slovenia, including Maja Weiss’ Child in Time (2005 Berlinale Shorts competition), Dar Fur: War for Water (Amnesty International Award at Durban IFF, 2008), and 2008 Trieste Film Festival winner Installation of Love, for which he composed pieces a 50-member orchestra; and acclaimed director Martin Turk’s feature debut Feed Me with Your Words (2012) and awarded shorts Things We’ve Never Done Together (2011), Stealing the Corn (2009), and Every Day Is Not the Same (2008).

BRAND FERRO

Director of photography, producer Brand Ferro (b. 1968 in Skopje) is a real passionate Southern mix. A Macedonian-Cuban, he has the singular talent in recognizing and employing authenticity, whether in art, food or wine. But his greatest passion is cinema.

Brand was educated in Skopje and Belgrade as a cinematographer. He started early, as an amateur behind the camera, and worked as a camera operator or DoP on awarded video shorts and series in the 1990s, including, After (1994), a which won an award from the Council of Europe at the Festival in Locarno, and N.E.P. (1995), an experimental-documentary, which screened at London Film Festival in 1995. Later he made numerous creative documentaries, TV series, short films, and commercials as both cinematographer and producer.

Selected filmography: Little Prince – DoP (Short by Matej Pehljan), 2015 - Best Short at Festival of Slovenian Film Perfect Circle – Co-producer and DoP (Docu by Claudia Tosi) Mama Europa – Co-producer and DoP (Docu by Petra Seliškar) Normal Life – Co-producer and DoP (Feature by Dimitar Anakiev), 2011 18 Meals – DoP (Feature by Jorge Coira), 2010 Water & Fire – Co-producer and DoP (Docu by Kiro Urdin), 2009 - Best Director and Cinematography at New York IFF, Best Film at Jahorina FF, Best Film at Eko FF Ohrid.

If No One Plays – Producer and DoP (Documentary by Gjorgji Janevski), 2009 - Best Film at DORF Mostar United – Co-producer and DoP (Documentary by Claudia Tosi), 2008 The Grandmothers of the Revolution – Co-producer and DoP (Docu by Petra Seliškar), 2006 Turkish Tea – DoP, producer (Docu series by Petra Seliškar), 2005

DORIJAN MILOVANOVIK Editor

Dorian Milovanovik graduated in editing from the National University of Film and Drama “Ion Luca Caragiale” in Bucharest. He was always attracted by the magic of animation and motion graphics, and at the film school he gained a sense of light and composition, and became a passionate photographer. He participated in eight group photo exhibitions and won two diplomas for photography.

After graduation he returned to his hometown Skopje, and for the past 12 years has been working on all kinds of projects, including documentaries, short films, animations and motion graphics, TV shows, etc.

Filmography: Carwash Cabaret (Short by Jordan Dukov), 2012 Inside (Short by Ivan Ivanovski), 2009 Doma (Feature documentary by Gjorce Stavreski), 2007

VLADIMIR GOJUN Editor

Vladimir Gojun (b. 1979) graduated Film Editing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb where he’s also a docent – associate professor since 2007.

He was appointed for two terms as an artistic advisor for Documentary films (production and development) by the Croatian Audiovisual Center. Besides working as an editor, he directed four documentary films.

Selected filmography: A New Home (Short, Dir: Žiga Virc), 2016 – Toronto IFF Houston, We Have a Problem! (Docu-fiction, Dir: Žiga Virc), 2016 – Tribeca FF, Karlovy Vary IFF, Best Film and Best Editing at the Festival of Slovenian Film You Carry Me (Fict, Dir: Ivona Juka), 2015 – Karlovy Vary IFF Russian (Documentary, Dir: Damir Ibrahimović), 2015 – Special Mention at ZagrebDox Yellow Moon (Short, Dir: Zvonimir Jurić), 2010 – Berlinale Shorts Cash & Marry (Docu, Dir: Atanas Georgiev), 2009 – Regards Neufs Award at Visions du Reel FF in Nyon Behind the Glass (Fict, Dir: Zrinko Ogresta), 2008 – Karlovy Vary IFF, Audience Award at Motovun FF Buick Riviera (Fict, Dir: Goran Rušinović), 2008 – Heart of Sarajevo for Best Film at Sarajevo FF

VLADIMIR RAKIĆ Sound Designer

Vladimir Rakic, Composer/Sound Designer/Sound Editor (1974, Novi Sad) Today he lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin.

He graduates in 2005 with a Bachelor of Art and Technology in Sound Design and Applied Composition from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht.

In the last ten years, he has been active in the area of film. He has worked on many documentary, feature, and animated films as well as in various segments of sound design such as editing, recording, designing, mixing, and composing.

He is also a lecturer at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam.

If you live in honesty, life will crush you down. But if you follow bad examples, you might get yourself hanged.

COMPANY PROFILE

PETRA PAN FILM Petra Pan Film is located in Ljubljana. It was founded in 2003 by the film director Petra Seliškar and the director of photography Brand Ferro. Together, they have produced and co-produced creative documentaries, arthouse fiction films, and TV series. In 2008, they established PPFP Macedonia in Skopje.

The films that Petra Pan Film produces are strongly committed to the cinema form and content and related to various, but always thoroughly researched topics. Moreover, these films display an individual vision and authorship.

In 2010, Seliškar and Ferro established the Festival of Creative Documentary Film MakeDox in Skopje, a favourite of many documentary filmmakers and audiences who enjoy its uncompromising programming and hospitable, informal atmosphere.

The creative minds behind the company initiate ideas and collaborate with film-makers, co-producers, and distributors, by supporting their goals and contributing to their success. They believe that every film they produce has to widen their horizons, change their views, and ultimately, their life.

Petra Pan Film Dunajska 195, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenija petra@petrapan.com Mobile: +38641 770 715 Skype: petraterra www.petrapan.com

A flower from a woman promises a lot, But who would give me a flower while I’m alive?

When a gravedigger sets me in a safe place Down beneath the basement floor, On my grave they will bring an entire florist’s shop.

It truly is best to live the life of a corpse.