Motovun 2000

MOTOVUN FILM FESTIVAL 2000 Twice as exciting as its first outing, Motovun Film Festival -- "The Second" (1-8 August 2000) showed no signs of that fabled jinx of the follow-up year. Rather, under the anxious gaze of the local populace, the five-day festival prompted a pilgrimage to this picturesque medieval town perched atop a hill on the Istrian peninsula in Croatia (closer to Trieste and Ljubljana than to Zagreb). Indeed, too many cineastes and visitors came, as the open-air arena on the town square comfortably seats only a couple thousand, while the restored town movie theatre can't squeeze in more than 200. Thus, just a day after the box office opened, the circa 50 films on the program were nearly all sold out, so ad hoc screenings had to be arranged on a school playground in the lower town. Ask artistic director Rajko Grlić where all this flamboyant festival flair...