Films

jedan

Name: jedan
Director: Matija Radeljak
Released: 2011

2011 · short fiction film · film project

Croatian 15-minute chamber drama where Nikola and Ivana confront trust, addiction, and an irreversible choice.

Hrvatski komorni kratki film: Nikola i Ivana u jednoj kupaonici, između povjerenja, ovisnosti i nepovratne odluke.

This project credentials: Creative production

Notes from the producer

I made jedan to do the whole thing myself, write it, direct it, produce it, and see whether a serious film could come out of one room and almost no money. The answer was yes, at a cost. The budget was EUR 25,000, and a lot of what ends up on screen exists because Studio Kubus and the crew gave time, gear and a camera dolly in kind while I chased the rest.

The festival campaign was relentless and uneven. We got into Cornwall, screened at the Cannes Short Film Corner in May 2012, and toured Pula, Opuzen, Zadar and Sibenik that summer. We also got turned down plenty, and a few submissions, Asiana and Panazorean, simply never wrote back. I am not going to dress that up. jedan did not become a festival trophy. What it became was proof that I could take a short from first draft to a market table at Cannes on my own, and that lesson paid for a lot of what came after it.

- Matija Radeljak

The story

jedan (English title: one) is a Croatian short fiction film, just under fifteen minutes, that Matija Radeljak wrote, directed, and produced through Aning Film in 2011. Adapted from Tomislav Zajec's Soba za razbijanje, it holds a single couple, Nikola and Ivana, inside one bathroom as trust and addiction collapse into an irreversible act. The whole thing was engineered as a chamber piece, and it never broke that discipline.

The script went through a long, documented grind: a fourth draft in September 2010, a sixth English draft that November, then a compressed rewrite window in May 2011 that pushed a thirteenth and fourteenth revision and a full shooting book through in a matter of days. It was shot that spring in a Zagreb apartment on Jurjevska with a compact crew, Damir Kudin behind the camera and Csilla Barath Bastaic and Marko Cindric in front of it, and finished at fourteen minutes fifty-nine seconds by July 2011.

The budget was EUR 25,000, and the archive is honest about how tight that was. A letter of guarantee from Studio Kubus covered actors, equipment, a camera dolly, catering and postproduction in kind, explicitly contingent on the rest of the financing closing. Postproduction was tracked line by line: sound mix, original score, colour correction, voiceover, credits. That is the service this project actually proves. A full short-film lifecycle run end to end by one producer, from first page to final cut, on a micro-budget held together by in-kind support.

Radeljak then ran the film like a distribution operation. From mid-2011 it was submitted to Sundance, Warsaw, Clermont-Ferrand, Aguilar de Campoo, Brussels, Berwick, Cottbus, Cornwall and more, through Withoutabox and ShortFilmDepot, with both acceptances and rejections filed and tracked. A premiere was staged in Zagreb on 11 October 2011. In January 2012 he filed a HAVC international-cooperation application tied to the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

The high point was Cannes. As an EAVE 2012 graduate, Radeljak took jedan to the Short Film Corner from 18 to 23 May 2012, screening it to roughly twenty-five people and taking market meetings, including a possible sale to MUBI and a possible co-production with Marbella. That summer brought Croatian screenings in Pula, Opuzen, Zadar and Sibenik. The record stays honest about the edges: a few submissions, Asiana and Panazorean among them, never came back with any answer. What jedan demonstrates is not a shelf of prizes but capability, that a small team and EUR 25,000 could carry a film from a bathroom set to a market table at Cannes.

Recognition

Cornwall Film Festival · 2011
Cannes Short Film Corner · 2012
Pula Film Festival · 2012
Opuzen Film Festival · 2012

Milestones

2010-09 — Fourth screenplay draft
2010-11 — Sixth English-language screenplay draft
2011-05 — Concentrated rewrite cycle and shooting book (13th and 14th revisions)
2011-07 — Film completed at 14 min 59 sec
2011-10-11 — Premiere staged in Zagreb
2012-01 — HAVC international-cooperation application (Berlinale Co-Production Market)
2012-05 — Cannes Short Film Corner, 18-23 May 2012
2012 — Summer screenings in Pula, Opuzen, Zadar and Sibenik

Outcomes

Completed short film — Final cut delivered at 14 min 59 sec, July 2011
Zagreb premiere — Premiere event staged on 11 October 2011
Cannes Short Film Corner 2012 — Screening-room presentation to about 25 attendees plus market meetings (potential MUBI sale, possible Marbella co-production), 18-23 May 2012
Cornwall selection — Accepted at Cornwall Film Festival 2011
Croatian summer screenings — Screenings in Pula, Opuzen, Zadar and Sibenik, summer 2012

Credits

Matija Radeljak — Writer, Director, Producer
Tomislav Zajec — Author of source material
Csilla Barath Bastaic — Cast
Marko Cindric — Cast
Damir Kudin — Director of Photography
Mislav Muretic — Editor
Zeljko Veljkovic — Sound Design
Luka Venturin — Producer / Unit Production Manager
Iva Tkalec — Executive Producer
Martina Biljan — Production Manager
Mija Matasovic — Producer (Promotion and Distribution)
Aning Film — Production Company
Studio Kubus — In-kind production support