Fragments
2010 · Short fiction film dossier · Audiovisual production project
Croatian short drama Fragmenti examines intimacy through precise craft and festival-ready cinematic execution.
Sedmerominutna drama o tome kako o vezi odlučuju sitnice, a ne obrati, snimljena bez budžeta, s punom profesionalnom ekipom i završnom obradom skrojenom za festivale.
This project credentials: Creative production
Notes from the producer
Fragmenti was a craft exercise as much as a film. I wanted to see whether a relationship could be told in seven minutes purely through small moments, and whether I could run a full professional crew, twelve people, real departments, on essentially no budget without it turning into an amateur shoot. That part worked. The cost sheet at 59.923,50 kn is honest but partly retrospective; we made the film first and formalized the numbers after, and we deliberately loaded postproduction because a short lives or dies on its finish.
I will be straight about the rest: I planned the HD-to-35mm transfer and the festival run, prepared the application for Dani hrvatskog filma, and I cannot point to a document that says any of it landed. The archive keeps the intent, not the outcome. I would rather leave that open than dress it up.
- Matija Radeljak
The story
Fragments (Fragmenti) is a seven-minute Croatian drama from 2010, built on a single, unfashionable idea: that a relationship is decided by small moments rather than one dramatic turn. Matija Radeljak wrote and directed it around ordinary pressure points, an afternoon, an argument, a gesture that becomes a reason to stay or go, and kept the scale deliberately tight so that performance, rhythm and tone would carry it. It was made under Studio Kubus and shot on HD.
The production was compact by design. A crew of twelve professionals took the film through preproduction, shooting and postproduction in roughly twenty working days. Radeljak carried the writer-director-producer load alongside Luka Venturin as producer; Zrinka Rogulj ran unit production and assistant directing, Damir Kudin shot it, Mislav Muretic cut it, and Anita Andreis Zganec and Zeljko Veljkovic handled score and sound. For a film this short, that is a full professional department chart, not a favor-based shoot.
The budget tells the real story. The narrative is blunt that the film began without money, yet the documentation formalizes a full cost plan of 59.923,50 kn, and 40.150,00 kn of it, two thirds, is assigned to postproduction, including a planned transfer from HD to 35 mm. The remaining lines (crew and cast honoraria, camera, sound, lighting, a 5 percent reserve) stay lean. That weighting is a decision, not an accident: spend where the film has to compete, which for a 2010 short chasing festivals meant projection quality.
The package was assembled to travel, the film on DVD, documentation on CD, an application form, and the paper trail continues past the shoot: an application prepared for the 20th Dani hrvatskog filma (Croatian Film Days) in early 2011, and a director-of-photography contract formalized that September. What the archive does not contain is closure. There is no record confirming a funding decision, no confirmation that the 35 mm transfer was ever executed, and no documented festival selection or screening; the HAVC Croatian film catalogue lists the film but no awards.
So Fragments is honest about what it is: a small, seriously made drama whose surviving proof is production discipline rather than a festival run. What it demonstrates is the studio's core service, running a complete, properly credited, correctly costed professional production on almost no cash, and budgeting for the finish rather than the shoot.
Milestones
- 2010 — Fragmenti completed: seven-minute HD short drama produced under Studio Kubus
- 2010-07-15 — Consolidated dossier and submission package assembled (film on DVD, documentation on CD, application form)
- 2011-01-31 — Application prepared for the 20th Dani hrvatskog filma (Croatian Film Days)
- 2011-09-04 — Contract with director of photography Damir Kudin formalized
Outcomes
- Film completed — Preproduction, shooting, and postproduction finished across roughly 20 working days with a crew of twelve professionals.
- Submission package assembled — Film on DVD, documentation on CD, and an application form prepared for distribution and festival submission.
Credits
- Matija Radeljak — Writer, Director, Producer
- Luka Venturin — Producer
- Zrinka Rogulj — Unit Production Manager, Assistant Director
- Damir Kudin — Director of Photography
- Mislav Muretic — Editor
- Silvija Dogan — Production Designer
- Anita Andreis Zganec — Composer
- Zeljko Veljkovic — Sound Designer
- Iva Korencic — Makeup Artist
- Luka Rukavina — Creative Consultant
- Ines Cokaric — Cast
- Ivica Gunjaca — Cast
- Studio Kubus — Production Company
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