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