Safe Place
New Directors/New Films 2023
March 29 - April 9, 2023
First-time writer-director-star Juraj Lerotić has constructed a gripping, ever-intensifying drama, based on events from his own difficult family history, about a young man desperately trying to save and care for his suicidal brother over the course of 24 hours.
Q&A with Juraj Lerotić on April 6 and 7
Expertly employing a suspenseful thriller framework to touch upon painful and deeply personal themes, first-time writer-director-star Juraj Lerotić has constructed a gripping, ever-intensifying drama about a young man (Lerotić) desperately trying to save and care for his suicidal brother, Damir (Goran Marković), over the course of 24 hours. Based on events from Lerotić’s own difficult family history, the film hews closely to its main character as he and his weary mother (Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov) navigate an endless bureaucratic chain of alternately incompetent and menacing medical professionals and eventually try to take the law into their own hands for the benefit of Damir’s physical and mental well-being. Wisely avoiding diagnosis or psychological motivation, Safe Place is a mostly naturalistic depiction of a mental health crisis that occasionally peers, as if in a dream, across the gossamer line separating life and death. Winner of the prize for best first feature at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival and several other international awards.
Read More
Rose of Nevada Director Mark Jenkin on His New Sci-Fi Tinged Tale
On the latest episode of FLC Luminaries, our video series that spotlights talent at all levels of the filmmaking process who uplift the art and craft of cinema, Rose of Nevada director Mark Jenkin discusses his sci-fi-tinged tale of dislocation and regeneration.
Kamal Aljafari on With Hasan in Gaza and ‘The Camera of the Dispossessed’
Our 63rd New York Film Festival Talks featured a special conversation with With Hasan in Gaza director Kamal Aljafari, moderated by Film Comment editor Devika Girish.
Lucrecia Martel on Our Land (Nuestra Tierra), the Filmmaker’s First Feature Documentary
On the latest episode of FLC Luminaries, our video series that spotlights talent at all levels of the filmmaking process who uplift the art and craft of cinema, Our Land (Nuestra Tierra) director Lucrecia Martel discusses her expansive and enlightening first feature documentary.
