Slides That Follow Your Voice: Croatian Accent Awards Host

Slide 1: Lipa Film Days, closing night

0:17Good evening, and welcome to the closing night of the Lipa Film Days, the fourteenth one, which means we have now been doing this longer than some of tonight's directors have been alive, and I checked, and two of them are twenty-two. [chuckles]

0:33My name is Ana, I have hosted this evening for the last six years, and I would like to say I have got better at it, but the uh, the technical director tells me the running time has gone up every year, so I will try tonight to prove him wrong, and he is already shaking his head. [laughs]

0:54Some numbers before the envelopes. This year we received six hundred and ten, sorry, six hundred and twelve submissions from forty-one countries. We showed eighty-eight films over nine days in three cinemas and one tent, and the tent, as those of you who were there on Wednesday know, is not waterproof, which the festival describes as an immersive experience. eleven thousand four hundred tickets were sold, which is a record, eleven thousand six hundred, they are telling me in my ear, fine, and three hundred and forty of those were to one man called Marko who, you know, we have decided to simply give a chair.

Slide 3: 11,400 tickets sold

1:38No? Marko is here. Marko, wave. There he is. Okay.

1:44The jury. Five people who have watched eighty-eight films in nine days, which is roughly one hundred and fifty hours, which is more than most marriages, and who have fought, I am told, about everything, including lunch. I have not asked what they argued about at lunch, and I do not intend to. They are tired. They are also, I think, the only five people in this room who have seen everything, so when they stand up, be kind, and when they sit down, be kinder.

Slide 4: The jury: 150 hours

2:19Before the, two thank, before the awards. Before the awards, two thank-yous that are not on my card. To the volunteers, sixty-one of them, mostly students from the film school, who have driven directors to the airport at four in the morning and have never once asked for anything except a jacket, which we gave them, and which they have not given back.

Slide 5: Two thank-yous not on my card

2:45And to the woman who runs the cafe by the tent, who stayed open to one every night without anyone asking, and who is not here tonight because somebody has to make the coffee, and who is, you know, the only person in this town I would trust with a festival.

3:05Now, how tonight works. There are seven awards. Each winner has two minutes, which I will enforce with a bell, and the bell is real, and I rang it on a very famous person in twenty twenty-one and I would do it again, I would do it again. [laughs] I will not say who. Everybody knows who. He has forgiven me. He sent a card. The card said, ring it louder next time. So.

Slide 6: How tonight works

3:34The jury statement is read first, then the name, then you come up, and the stairs on the left are easier than the stairs on the right, which I say every year, and every year somebody takes the right. If your name is called twice, that is not a mistake, it has happened.

3:53Sorry, I have the cards in the wrong order. One more thing, yes, this one. Okay. One more thing. We lost a friend of this festival in March, the man who built the first screen in the tent with his own hands in twenty twelve, and who did not want a tribute, and who is getting a short one anyway, after the fourth award, because it is our festival and not his. [sighs]

Slide 7: After the fourth award: a short tribute

4:22So. The envelopes are on the table, the bell is in my hand, and the jury is, I think, awake. The band is playing already. Thank you, that is my cue, apparently. Short film. Jury president. The left stairs.