Sky Above the Town

Žiga Virc is a Slovenian director and screenwriter. Born in 1987 in Novo mesto, he graduated from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film, and Television (AGRFT, University of Ljubljana) in Film and Television Directing. After the success of the internet trilogy Tine Strela, he directed the short film Trieste is ours!, while still attending university. The short film upset the Italian political leadership, with the foreign minister at the head. The short received a Student Academy Award 2010 nomination, the AGRFT and the Prešeren Student Award 2010, 4 Goldilocks awards (AGRFT awards), and the national Vesna award for actor in a lead role at the Slovenian Film Festival in 2010. In 2012 he directed 4 documentaries for national television RTV Slovenija with his production company Studio Virc. In the same year the trailer for his new project about the Yugoslav space program titled Houston, We Have a Problem! gained international recognition, with 1 million YouTube views in three days; the feature-length documentary premiered in 2016 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and has since visited many film festivals, including London BFI, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, etc. He is experienced in a cross-platform approach, with some of his previous works going viral both nationally and internationally. His works are notable for their dramatic visual style, the use of music to build tension, incorporating a detailed approach to a narrative structure, and making it appealing to a broad audience. He has directed numerous commercials, documentary films, and fiction works, for which he received many awards. Today he creates within his family film company Studio Virc in Novo mesto. In the co-production of Studio Virc and RTV Slovenia, he mainly directs documentaries and short films, as well as television commercials. Sources: IDF, OSP, IMDb