Stojan Pelko's speech during the Kinoatelje's 2025 program presentation

8th January 2025, BorGo Cinema, Gorizia

Do you know what the Italian word for “conurbation” is? Cinecittà!

Of course, not—and of course, yes. Because if there is one area where the primary strategic goal of the European Capital of Culture—to make two cities breathe as one—is fully realized, it is the domain of film and cinema, which has borne the universally understandable title Cinecittà – The Film City ever since the 2020 application book.

At that time, four projects were consolidated into a single cluster under the "Capacity Building and Support Programs" banner. Today, more than four years later, we can confidently say that Cinecittà not only strengthened capacities but also enhanced the visibility and attractiveness of the entire official program. It doesn't just support the program; it actively builds and develops it.

From this perspective—and this is something my colleague Vlado Škafar and I have experienced firsthand in recent months while finalizing the GO! 2025 program book with the Robida collective from Topolò—Cinecittà is practically the fifth pillar of the official program (alongside War and Peace, Creation of the New, Smugglers, and Very Green), or if you will, the fifth element that intertwines and moves through all four program strands.

It’s about dynamic and moving images in all their phases—from scriptwriting concepts (Script Without Borders residency) to production incentives (GO! Film Office), actual production (the Friuli Venezia Giulia omnibus short film competition), cinematographic hubs (Go Cinema Hub), festival distribution (East / West), animation (Animation Lab), documentary filmmaking (Archive Brigades and Memory Ambulance), television, pedagogy, journalism, and theoretical reflection. These are the “block” of our film city, our cinematic conurbation—and one of its key avenues or boulevards runs between the Darko Bratina Court and BorGO Cinema.

That’s why I’m proud and delighted to welcome today’s presentation of the Cinecittà segments diligently managed and developed by Kinoatelje. We are already in full swing for 2025, and the work of Kinoatelje and their neighbors from the court demonstrates just how much has already been achieved: Nicolas Philibert at the Tribute to a Vision Film Festival, Bellocchio and Tornatore at the Sergio Amidei Film Festival, The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (awarded the Golden Palm) in the Nova Gorica Cultural Center, and Kino Soča-Isonzo Cinema at numerous locations last summer... All these are dimensions of European credibility in your work so far.

Adding to this, many Slovenian and Italian authors are still to come, including premieres; scripts written here are already being filmed (e.g., Jan Cvitkovič), and productions encouraged by the official European Capital of Culture program are traveling the world (e.g., Božič's Uncommon Fruits in Rotterdam). We can confidently say that GO! 2025 is already leaving its mark. Therefore, there’s no fear for its legacy after 2025—filmmakers, if anyone, know how to think and work in multi-year cycles, persistently striving for long-term, lasting effects.

Allow me, then, to thank Kinoatelje and the entire team for their exemplary collaboration and leadership of both projects. To all future viewers, I wish plenty of new discoveries and sublime moments, which, in their audiovisual complexity, film can sometimes still uniquely provide.