The short film The Ground for Culture explores the contemporary situation of cultural workers through the built environment, displaying the Cukrarna building (Ljubljana, Slovenia) as a metaphor and symbol that merges the past and current position of cultural production workers. Cukrarna was for 200 years an unestablished place with dark and damp walls where the most influential Slovene literates (Ivan Cankar, Oton Župančič) of the modern period were creating, living and dying in impoverished conditions.
In the past, Cukrarna was a place for low-income artists who squatted and inhabited the building, but with renovation, this place became unaffordable for lower-income artists to build communities of cultural production. The film The Ground for Culture addresses the problematic consequences of establishing a culture in urban development. To reveal this issue of the gentrification of culture the film introduces four characters performing in the Cukrarna building as contemporary representatives of their cultural profession, raising awareness on the effects of space gentrification, highlighting inequalities of cultural workers and questioning the inclusiveness of space.
Director and editor: Rebeka Bratož Gornik
DOP: Martin Klabus
Music: Oskar Longyka
Voice over: Nada Vodušek
Camera assistant: Vanda Stubelj
Production: RBG Film, Lina Community, MAXXI Museum Film Lab
Starring: Jerica Mrzel Vasja Klun Georgina Tailor Maša Gala
Special thanks: Cukrarna (MGML), Ljubljana
Projekcije / Festivali
2023 KM_Demannio Marittimo, Italija
2023 ARK REX Film Festival, Finska
