Žiga Virc (Houston, We Have a Problem! [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Žiga Virc
scheda film]) started shooting his next feature-length film, Shooting Blanks [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], on Saturday 11 June, on location in Medvode, Slovenia. The cast list of the film is led by Primož Pirnat (seen recently in Andrej Košak’s All Against All and Metod Pevec’s I Am Frank [+leggi anche:
trailer
intervista: Metod Pevec
scheda film]), Eva Jesenovec (the star of Urša Menart’s My Last Year as a Loser [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Timon Sturbej
scheda film]), veteran actor Bine Matoh, Jurij Drevenšek (whose recent credits include Miroslav Mandić’s Sanremo [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Miroslav Mandić
scheda film] and Damjan Kozole’s Half-Sister [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Damjan Kozole
scheda film]) and Greek actress Angeliki Papoulia (of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Yorgos Lanthimos
scheda film] and The Lobster [+leggi anche:
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Q&A: Yorgos Lanthimos
scheda film] fame). Behind the camera, the crew includes up-and-coming cinematographer Fabris Šulin, production designer Gregor Nartnik (Tomaž Gorkič’s Idyll [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]), costume designer Tina Hribernik and make-up artist Lea Bratušek, while the script was penned by Virc and Iza Strehar (Bitch, A Derogatory Term for a Woman [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]).

The plot revolves around France, who wants to stop a German shopping mall chain from tearing down the statue of his father, who was a national hero of the resistance movement during World War II, in order to build another mall. One of the victims of France’s personal “resistance” is his own daughter Vida, who just wants to live her life, look to the future and raise her family. Over the course of 24 hours, events will turn the lives of everyone involved upside down.

The director stated that he started developing the script in 2017 together with Iza Strehar, but filming kept being pushed back owing to funding obstacles and the pandemic, which gave him more time to reflect on the project. Producer Boštjan Virc, of principal production company Studio Virc, highlighted that he was very glad that the co-production between Slovenia and Greece came about as a natural choice because of the countries’ similar recent history of economic crises and political divisions, and the shared sense of humour that has been injected into the film.

Production of Shooting Blanks is entrusted to Studio Virc (Slovenia) and Sinisa Juricic at Nukleus Film (Croatia). It is financially supported by HAVC, the Slovenian Film Centre, Radio-Television Slovenia, Greek broadcaster ERT and Creative Europe – MEDIA, while Viba Film Studio provided technical support. The Greek co-producer of the film is Minos Nikolakakis (Asphalt), best known for producing, writing and directing the arthouse-genre hybrid Entwined [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Minos Nikolakakis
scheda film].