This year, the third edition of the Film Festival Ponta Lopud took place. The story goes around that such a special festival could only be created out of pure love: towards film and towards Lopud.
For 4 days, this small island lives and breathes the film along with its festival participants. Locals joke that they are already used to the Oscar winners passing by their house and having a morning coffee with them. Lopud is an island of art. It is not surprising that in Lopud one of the biggest art collectors, Francesca von Habsburg, and her T-B A21 foundation, participated in many contemporary art projects, including the Art Pavilion Your black horizon by Olafur Eliasson and David Adjaye.
Francesca is also known for the Lopud 1483 property. She renovated a former Franciscan monastery that had been abandoned for almost 200 years. She magically turned the monastery into an elegant boutique hotel, a museum and a spiritual refuge of the 21st century.
Lopud has always attracted artists. During your first short walk along the coast, you will already see the incredible architectural projects of Nikola Dobrović and, above all, the Grand Hotel. In front of the first hotel in Europe made completely out of concrete, the tallest palm trees in the entire Europe can be found!
In the past, concerts were held on the terrace in front of the hotel, locals used to mingle and fall in love with foreigners, writing the pages of Lopud’s history.
The film starts. The lights go out, we lie on the beach and look at the starry sky. Edward Norton is inviting us for a special screening of the film he chose for this evening “Painted Veil”. The production of this film lasted a full 10 years.
I like it even more now.
The festival was created out of the need of young film artists, directors, actors and cinematographers to gather and exchange experiences, knowledge and ideas with mentors and established figures in the film industry. Their idols. Those who know the secrets of the industry and who inspire us. Those thanks to whom we remember frames, dialogues or entire carriers of actors or directors. Conversations about film as a collective experience. “The most beautiful thing about making a movie is precisely that shared experience involving hundreds of people,” Edward Norton.
There is no competition here. The only goal is exchange. Dialogue. Norton himself says that he doesn’t know if he’s ready to be a mentor, because he’s still looking for a mentor himself. He is open to talk, to listen to questions and to try to answer them.
While the actors attended Edward Norton and Ruben Ostlund’s masterclass, I went on a tour of the island with Ružica, a local guide recommended by the Ponta Lopud Festival organizers.
Like everything else on the island, this encounter was different too.
Naturally, everything started from Lopud. We talked about its secrets, places and people who made an impact here. It is interesting that we got to the very end of the promenade, to the pavilion from where you can see the horizon and, in that moment, we went silent. In that magical place, Ružica told me about her Mindfulness tours with people who want more than tourism. She told me about the people similar to us, who connect to nature in order to reach their most beautiful internal depths. She surprised me in a way that left me thinking how in Lopud nothing happens by chance and everything has its own special dimension.
Once you decide to visit Lopud, just let yourself go. It is certain that locals will meet you on bicycles (there are no cars on the island), and the best thing you can do is leave your phone on the boat… Keep notes of what you’re experiencing on the island, because the magic can disappear if you don’t record it or write it down.
Ps. Lopud awakens the imagination easily. The story about the architect Nikola Dobrović will soon follow, and next year I’m planning to come to the Ponta Lopud Festival and write a diary every day that I will share with you.
Thank you pontalopud.hr for this special experience and my future guru Ružica @lopudguide
