Screening of film/video oeuvre ’80-’10
Screening and talk
Wednesday, 31 Janauary 2024, 8pm
Slovenian Cinematheque, Miklošičeva cesta 28, Ljubljana
The Borghesia group (Zemira Alajbegović, Goran Devide, Aldo Ivančić, Neven Korda, Dario Seraval), which grew out of the activities and production of the FV conglomerate, released the videocassette So Young (Tako mladi) in 1985, which was the first VHS compilation of music videos in the former Yugoslavia. The band’s goal was to create music and establish a multimedia expression in which the video image played a key role. This already characterized Borghesia’s stage performances – a kind of video performance – represented by the use of monitors and projectors: this already hinted at the editing processes and the layering of images that would later be present in their music videos.
Borghesia was one of the first Yugoslav bands to emphasize the video as an integral part of their presence. In 1985, their first LP, Ljubav je hladnija od smrti (Love Is Colder than Death), was released, and that was also the year when they closed the K4 club, which meant the closure of the last FV space. The club’s activity thus shifts to the organization of concerts, and the publishing activity (discographies, videocassettes) also begins to take shape.
So Young (videos Cindy, A.R., and ZMR) were produced in hard-cut video editing, where it was impossible to influence the texture and speed of the image. Therefore, Korda manipulated the image’s speed, colour, and geometry with special procedures before editing.
This process changes with the second videocassette, The Triumph of Desire (Triumf Želje), released by FV in 1990, which Korda was finishing during the then-Borghesia break-up. Here, the video montage itself is a tool of manipulation. The Triumph of Desire is a compilation of video clips, tour documentation, and the performance Futurists (Bodočniki), made between 1987 and 1989, which continues the iconography of So Young. Here, Neven Korda’s aesthetics reaches its peak as he exploits the givens of the video medium. While celluloid records an image of depth, where it is possible to create different planes through the play of light and shadows, the electronic image of video cannot do so. The richness and layering of space are thus created primarily through image layering, which results in the saturation of the image characteristic of Borghesia’s spots.
Robert Kuret will talk with Neven Korda.
Authors: Borghesia, Marina Gržinić, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1984, Beta SP (shot on U-matic Lband), color, 4′
The protagonists of Cindy’s video occupy the apocalyptic space of an abandoned villa. The people in the video are primarily static, existing in a still-life mode.
Author: Borghesia, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1984, Beta SP (shot on U-matic Lband), color, 5′
The dynamics of the video are created by combining positive and negative shots of different urban and subcultural events. Traditional and alternative cultures are in constant struggle.
Author: Borghesia, Slovenia (Jugoslavia), 1984, Beta SP (shot on U-matic Lband), color, 4′
It is an atypical Borghesia video: static, monumental, melancholic. It presents the urban environment with shots of modern and neoclassical architecture. The static female figure is numbed and present in this environment in the manner of a sculpture; the vividness of the skin and the movements are still barely perceptible.
Art director/director: Neven Korda, producer/script: Zemira Alajbegović, Slovenia (Jugoslavia), 1990, Beta SP (shot on U-matic Lband), color, 63′
It is a compilation of music videos by Borghesia (Document, G.U.M., Poppers, Triptych Futurists, No Hope No Fear, Discipline, Mud, She, Venceremos). It continues the iconography already hinted at in So Young. With images and symbols, he focuses on alternative movements that have remained on the margins from the Yugoslav cultural past to the present.
Unknown Land II: Borghesia
28 February – 6 March
» View at Slovenian Film Database (BSF)
The Unknown Land II: Borghesia programme at the Slovenian Film Festival will – like the first part of the programme – return to the period of the first half of the 1980s and will show both the rich musical production and the ways of documenting it. In addition to Borghesia, some of the other stakeholders of the alternative scene that the FV conglomerate helped to shape will be shown: representatives of Ljubljana punk and hard-core. The compilation So Young (Tako mladi), which was the first VHS compilation of music videos in the former Yugoslavia, will also be available in its entirety, where we can see different methods: archive footage from the FV Disco, the use of images Korda shot from television, as well as more fictionalized music videos.
Director: Neven Korda, Slovenia (Jugoslavia), 1985, 26′
A compilation of music videos by Ljubljana hardcore bands U.B.R., Tožibabe, Odpadki civilzacije, Epidemija and III. kategorija. The videocassette is a collage of documentary, feature and other footage; each band performs two or three songs. The scenes, filmed in the suburbs of Ljubljana, in basements, and the then Lenin Park, are often crude expressions of hardcore everyday life, of the search, fear, rage, as well as cynicism and self-irony of the actors of this subculture.
Author: Neven Korda, Radmila Pavlović, Niet, Slovenia (Jugoslavia), 1984, 20′
Music videos of punk band Niet, filmed at the New Rock 1984, in the working-class settlements and on the streets of Ljubljana.
Author: Borghesia, Slovenia (Jugoslavia), 1985, 31′
A compilation of music videos by Borghesia (Tako mladi, Divja horda, On, Too much tension, Cindy, A.R., ZMR), which was released as the first videocassette with music videos in the broader region of Yugoslavia by FV in 1985. These are small, almost cinematic stories, dealing mainly with the iconography of the body in urban space. One of the spots uses pioneering computer graphics.
Neven Korda: Unknown Land
Programme (January-April 2024)
31 January / 28 February / 12 March / 24 April
Production: SCCA-Ljubljana and Slovenian Cinematheque
Curator: Robert Kuret
Neven Korda is an artist who has contributed significantly to developing video as a new medium. He creatively expressed himself through various periods, experimenting with the expressive possibilities of media that produced video.
A survey of Korda’s works will be organized into four programmatic strands, which follow the development of his creativity, each linked to a specific historical, production, genre, and collaborative context. Except for his last period of filmmaking, Neven Korda has been a part of various collectives where authorship has been declared joint.
Co-production: SCCA-Ljubljana/DIVA Station and Slovenian Cinematheque
Partner: Slovenian Film Database (BSF)
Supported by: City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture
Thanks: Barbara Borčić, Miha Colner, Petja Grafenauer, Nikolai Jeffs, Nerina Kocjančič, Bogdan Lešnik, Majda Širca, Melita Zajc
