Wonderful project, incredible evenings, extraordinary people! – This project, another one of the series, nothing is impossible, although it often seems so in our lovely Koroška.
In post-socialist countries, cultural work is quite ambiguous. On the one hand you can find the most wonderful people to work with, really fertile soil when bothering about culture, on the other hand, anybody working within the field of culture, nota bene, private run culture, is steadily at the limit with his financial capacities. In consequence, there is little chance for professionalism to be developed. Associations and NGO’s mostly survive in urban centers, cultural productions in rural areas are mostly left to states-run institutions or to amateurs, whose costs are systematically covered through a state’s fund for amateur culture (jskd.si).
This mechanisms is no good for us, especially when occasions come by, as it was when Alex Recht – an old friend, world-traveler, filmmaker, surf- and skate-enthusiast – called one day from the Cote d’Azur, asking if we would like to try to put on some Open-Air Sweetride Cinemobile – Events, … he could come over before heading home to Munich, Germany, showing some classics on 8 and 16mm?!
We saw a nice project, nice evenings, good vibes and a little bit of traveler-atmosphere – to make it short, no money from officials, but willingness in cooperation besides Zavod Dravit in nearby Dravograd and Zavod Udarnik in Maribor.
Together we could make it, – we did! We held our “Korenine Asfaltnih valov” (Roots of Asphalt-waves) from the 26. to 28. August, three evenings, three locations, some hundred people enjoyed with us 8 and 16mm surfer-classics and some surf- and skate-classic from Hollywood.
Wonderful party – thanks to Alex Recht, Janja Bartelj, Žiga Brdnik, Srđan Trifunović, Maja Arzenšek, Robert Preglau, Lucija Čevnik and Rado Carlo Poggi.
