Anything Goes : Grossmannns film and Wine festival by Saku Kocen

Grossmann's film and Wine festival.

I've been wanting to write about this festival for a long time. Now I finally took some time to do it. Let's get to it.

Grossmann's film and Wine festival takes place every year around July 16 in Ljutomer, Slovenia, and lasts from Tuesday to Saturday.

As the name Grossmann says is a festival dedicated to Dr. Karol Grossmann. He is known for making the first Slovenian movies: »Dismissal from Mass in Ljutomer«, »The Ljutomer Fair« and »In The Family Garden«. Thank to him, ten years later Slovenias were on the same terms with other nations.

In memoriam to Dinko Tucaković, one of the greatest cinephiles from the area of ex-Yugoslavia, a wonderful man, guiding star and soul of Serbian film and

Franci Slak. He was one of the main supporters of our festival, a program consultant, the permanent president of the expert jury, and a great friend.

You can read more about them on the site I will add at the end or search for them otherwise. The site is in Slovenian and English language.

You can read about the program, workshops, movies, etc.

I will talk about my experience at the festival. I try to attend the festival every year. Often watch some of the movies presented at the festival. Movies presented are horror from different countries which also compete for the award Vicious cat.

There are Film programs and Wine programs which are both great and fun if you like those sorts.

Next to the main programs, we have workshops anyone can attend such as zombies, fortune-telling, Visual FX workshop, makeup workshop, movie critics workshop, and my favorite Little shop of horrors workshop.

I will tell you a little more about the last one. Little shop of horrors is dedicated to the movies of the same name which were shot in a day and two nights. The fastest shot movie of all time.

The purpose of the workshop is to shot a movie which you wrote, with a group of people of your choice. It should be horror and you have time a day and two nights to make it.

The commission also chooses the winner which is shown on the last day of the festival.

Two years ago, in 2019 I choose to do it. I wrote a little script, about 4-5 pages long. (film should be a few minutes long not longer). I called a few of my friends and we made the movie. It was a lot of fun doing it, and I learned that making your own movies no matter how long they may be is not an easy task. I may take it too easy, but in the end, we finished it and we won!

I know it's not much and the movie is bad, truly but we got blood and killing which is the main thing.

It's horror after all.

I was beyond happy because it was the first movie which I made myself. I wrote it, filmed it, montage it, and played in it with the support of a few great people.

I wanted that cat and I got it.

I will add the link to our little movie here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLmU8rcwhd0

To not forget every year they invite people working in the movie industry, mostly someone whose film is shown at the festival, like movie directors, actors also from different countries. For example, years ago sir Christopher Lee came. And I regret I wasn't able to meet him that time.

I did have a chance to meet Jesse Hajja the director of Rendel and Sam Firstenberg the director of an American ninja. Took a photo with them and small chat. Jesse also agreed to read one of my scripts. Though my beginner script wasn't worth sending out I don't regret anything. I got a chance, I took it and improve that script a lot in the following years.

I will finish with an invitation for all who like festivals of that kind. It's not big but it's worth it if you're close by.

The site: http://www.grossmann.si/en/