Grad’s thesis film opens in Toronto Friday

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What began as an MFA thesis film for recent York grad Igor Drljaca (BFA Spec. Hons. ’07, MFA ’11) will be released at a Toronto theatre this Friday.

Krivina premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) “to great reception”, says Drljaca, who completed the igor_drljaca_still_300dpifilm production program in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts.

The 70-minute film was picked up for distribution following TIFF by College Street Pictures and will run for one week, from Jan. 25 to 31, at the Royal Theatre, 608 College St., Toronto. Tickets are available at the door 30 minutes before the screening. To view the trailer, click here.

Igor Drljaca

The international premiere of Krivina will take place at the International Film Festival Rotterdam Jan. 28.

Starring Goran Slavkovic and Jasmin Geljo, and directed, produced and written by Drljaca, Krivina takes the audience into the life of Miro, an immigrant from the former Yugoslavia, now living in Toronto. When Miro finds out that his pre-war friend Dado, who has been missing for almost two decades, is now wanted for war-era crimes, his life starts to unravel. Upon hearing that Dado still visits a village on the outskirts of Sarajevo, Miro embarks on a trip back to Bosnia to find his friend.

krivina_still2 A screen shot from the film Krivina

Like the character in his film, Drljaca was also born in the former Yugoslavia and moved to Canada in 1993 with his family because of the war. His 2010 short film, Woman in Purple,was made as part of a Sarajevo City of Film grant, and has screened at dozens of international festivals, including Telluride Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortfest and Sarajevo Film Festival.

While primarily a fiction filmmaker, he continues to explore new territories through hybrid and non-fiction work. His first non-fiction film, The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar, was recently nominated for a 2013 Canadian Screen Award (formerly a Genie Award) for Best Short Documentary and was chosen as one of Canada’s Top Ten Short Films of 2011. It has screened at various festivals, including TIFF, the Melbourne International Film Festival, Cinema du Reel, Los Angeles Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival and Era New Horizons Film Festival.

For more information on screening times, visit the Royal Theatre website.

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