Silvestar Kolbas
Directing
Biography
Silvestar Kolbas is a photographer, cinematographer, and director. Born in Petrovci near Vukovar in 1956, he grew up in Vinkovci. He graduated in Film and TV Camera in 1982 from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Today he is a full-time professor at the same institution. His debutant cinematographic work on Živorad Tomić's feature film Diploma for Death won him an award at the Manaki Brothers Film Festival in Bitola in 1989. Early in his professional career he works as freelance photographer and cinematographer. Then he starts working for Croatian Television on numerous TV programs, reports, and TV films later, he becomes a top TV cinematographer. Kolbas had photo exhibitions, wrote, and edited papers about cinematography, directed one feature film and numerous short and TV films, series and documentaries for television and in independent productions. He had his directorial debut in 2003, with his acclaimed autobiographical film All About Eva. Made over a number of years, the film follows a couple (the director and his wife) in their numerous attempts at artificial insemination and the dilemmas arising from it. Lately he has mostly been engaged in feature-length documentaries (Life in Fresh Air, Lucky Child, All About Eva, Lora – Testimonies, Mimara Revisited), mainly for Factum. His medium-length documentary War Reporter, produced by Factum, won him the annual Vadimir Nazor Award for Film 2011.
Known For
Old houses in Zagreb are destroyed in order to build new, bigger blocks. A teacher who lives in one of these houses allows a stranger to share his home with him. The stranger has a fascination with statistics, and claims he can predict crimes based on statistical analyses. When a predicted murder did not occur, the stranger is adamant that the whole town will suffer unless a balance is achieved - and he leaves.
The Rhythm of Crime
Kralj, an energetic businessman, unexpectedly gets into trouble: at the same moment both his wife and his mistress start seeing through his carefully constructed lies. It is one of those days when everything goes wrong. This is a story in which people don’t meet or talk, but try to solve their accumulated problems via text messages.
Waste
A young family from the province moves into the ground floor of a quiet building in Zagreb and with their lifestyle and behavior disrupts the idyllic atmosphere that reigned in that neighborhood until then. All attempts by the natives to bring them into order are unsuccessful, so they hatch a conspiracy. But their revenge will have serious consequences...
The Drinking Bout
Agrokor is the largest privately owned company in Croatia and a symbol of modern-day success of Croatian economy. The corporation headquarters is located in the tower of Dražen Petrović House, popularly known as the Cibona Tower, which represents one of the symbols of previous Croatian achievements from the late socialist period. In 2017 Agrokor’s business problems are disclosed – the losses amount to billions. In collusion between politics and economy, who is responsible for the breakdown of this corporation? Today Agrokor’s sign no longer hangs from the Cibona Tower.
The Tower
How do the children affect the feelings and opinions, as well as the relationship between Silvestar and his wife? How does he affect each child? Do children change him? Does each of them do it differently?
Our Children
Among the ruins of the cinema of my childhood, I found the remains of a film tape with pieces of films produced by the former state. Decay gave the tape a new quality and created a new aesthetic. The tape has found its way to its audience again. But nothing is the same.
The Red Star Cinema
Autobiographic story about author Silvestar Kolbas, his childhood, family and war in Croatia in 1991. which deeply touched and changed his life.
The War Reporter
This is a story about a painting portraying a fake political event: on a large-scale oil on canvas Balkan emigrants in Berlin are signing a peace treaty. The are posing to the famous Croatian painter Lovro Artuković, who assigned them the roles of presidents of the until recently waring Balkan countries. There are also UN mediators and international observers, advisors and border designers - 22 people, nine nationalities, all posing for Lovro's canvas, healing war traumas as they do it. This is a story about the making of a painting, about people who refused to go to war, about free-spirited Berlin.