“Due to the pandemic situation and the COVID-19 restrictions, we are preparing a ‘hybrid’ version of the festival. The competition programme will be shown in Ljubljana’s cinema Komuna, while the Panorama programme and other special screenings will be broadcast online on a special platform we are building together with the national television RTV Slovenija. Most of the professional meetings will also be broadcast digitally, assuring that foreign producers and experts will be able to participate”, Jelka Stergel, the director of the Festival of Slovenian Film, told FNE.

The submission process closed on 14 August 2020 and until now 100 films have already been selected. The final selection will be announced on 1 September 2020, but it is already known that the number of feature films will be lower than in previous years, while more long documentaries and short films have been submitted. 

“Due to many interruptions of the shooting and postproduction processes, significantly less films will be completed this year. Another reason for the small number of submitted feature films is that other international film festivals have either been postponed or even cancelled, and it is at those festivals that some directors and producers prefer to premiere their films,” Jelka Stergel also said.