- Produced by: Slovenian Cinematheque (represented by Ženja Leiler Kos)
- Conceived and curated by: Matevž Jerman, Kristina Ravnikar
- Exhibition and graphic design: Ranko Novak
Karpo Godina (Skopje, 1943) has left a striking mark on the history of Slovenian, Yugoslav and world cinema. As a student of the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in the mid-1960s, he drew attention to himself with a series of experimental films and left his mark on the lively Yugoslav amateur cinema scene, which emerged out of the numerous cinema clubs.
As a professional director of short films and a director of photography, he is today considered one of the key figures of the so-called Yugoslav Black Wave. As a director and screenwriter, he made several cult Slovenian feature films. He worked on almost a hundred films and even more iconic commercials. Furthermore, he co-shaped the Slovenian cinema landscape as a pedagogue and still tirelessly co-shapes it as a caretaker of film history. He is a worldwide promoter of film and a still active filmmaker. He is also the only Slovenian auteur who – in addition to numerous other retrospectives, presentations and exhibitions around the world – has had a retrospective of his films at MoMA in New York. K.G.’s oeuvre is clearly marked by a formal determinant – which is also the common thread of this exhibition – to which he tirelessly returned as an auteur. This determinant is the aesthetic of living pictures intertwined with the rare ability to see the transcendent in the banality of the everyday.
The transcendent can sometimes be a critical recognition of the contradictions of the social system and sometimes the recognition of sublime beauty or simply the channelling of a joyous fascination with and an affinity for fellow human beings whom he meets as a traveller in the most unusual places. In K.G.’s work, all of the above is usually merged and carefully framed through the camera lens within the limits of a static shot. As an artist, he is always aesthetically accomplished, subversive but not cynical; as a humanist, he is witty and consistently curious; as a craftsman, he is a master and, as a human being, always committed to exploring and admiring the world around him.
