Jerca Jerič

Alpe-Adria Underground!

Between 2013 and 2023, Slovenian Cinematheque preserved and digitized 179 short films created on a tiny stretch of land between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea in the period of socialism (1945-1991), but mostly outside the prevailing state production. Today, we belatedly recognize these films as experimental and as an important, innovative part of the Slovenian film heritage, visible again for the first time after decades. The production of Alpe-Adria Underground! has radically accelerated efforts to preserve, digitize and restore this segment of Slovenian cinema.

This is a Robbery!

Rajko is a professional magician who breaks his arm during a performance, but because of a bureaucratic error, his insurance company refuses to pay his claim. Outraged by the injustice, the insurance agent Marcel arranges a meeting with the head of Tangenta. But, in a fit of anger, Marcel unexpectedly kidnaps the CEO and soon, they are on the run together.

Newsreel 242 - Sunny Railways

In Yugoslavia in 1947, 211,000 of the country's young people, joined by 5,735 from abroad, worked with great enthusiasm building the 242 kilometer railroad between Sarajevo and Samac. A newsreel from the period shows them toiling away with spades, pickaxes and shovels to complete the job in just seven months. Newsreel 242-Sunny Railways is both a tribute to these idealistic young people and an elegy for the loss of hope for a better world. "The visions of the future suffocated in the rivers of blood and mass graves," we hear in voice-over, referring to the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia and to a broader context. The railroad, laid over the rubble of the Second World War, damaged during the Bosnian War, and neglected in the new millennium now looks like the ruins of some ancient civilization. This documentary essay argues that the story of the railroad harbors enduring ideas for a world beyond capitalism, and that we must rediscover the values of times past.