Magnificent7 Belgrade 2022 Zoo Lockdown


This text is written by Magnificent7 directors Svetlana and Zoran Popovic:

Austria 2022 
73 minutes 
director: Andreas Horvath

This is an exciting visual adventure by an exceptional Austrian photographer and filmmaker who exclusively introduces us to the world closed behind the long-locked doors of the Salzburg Zoo, to the world like from fairy tales and dreams.

The unexpected circumstances of the lockdown during the covid 19 pandemic left permanent residents of Salzburg Zoo without daily visits and noisy presence of visitors. In addition to the very discreet staff that maintains the basic living conditions, animals are left completely alone most of the time and left to their own devices. Through a series of surprising scenes the author virtuosly transforms the architectural particularity of the garden, full of glass partitions that relieve the impression of confinement and enable communication between animals, while making the space fluid, unreal and dreamlike. The presence of animals from a solid and unquestionable existence in life and on the screen often passes into unusual states between reality and apparition. Thoughtful, precisely chosen shots, with scenes sometimes as if from another, to us unknown world, very carefully study these creatures that we often take for granted and awaken in us the awareness of the equality of all living beings, in which man doesn’t have and shouldn’t have a privileged place . The secret of creatures remain undiscovered and exciting, and even the reappearance of people, daily visitors, who in their false superiority turn this place into a so-called zoo, trivializing the world, does not manage to change that.

A remarkable cinema experience, an impressive story almost without a single word about life and living beings with whom we share the that we live on.

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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