Anja Medved and Nadja Velušček: Zone of Transition

Screenings of film/video works from 1998–2025 with discussions. 

For several years now, SCCA-Ljubljana, in collaboration with the Slovenian Cinematheque, has been organizing reviews of the works of key female and male creators at the intersection of film and video. Following Ema Kugler, Miha Vipotnik, Marko A. Kovačič, Neven Korda, Nataša Prosenc Stearns, who have had a major impact on the alternative scene in Ljubljana, this year we turn to Goriška, where Anja Medved (1969) and Nadja Velušček (1948) have been working as an authorial duo since the late 1990s. We are opening a retrospective of their films on Wednesday, December 17, and will be dedicating one film evening to it every month until June 2026 at the Slovenian Cinematheque. In May, we will also move to the Vodnik Homestead, where Ljubljana's testimonies about the period during and after World War II were exhibited a decade ago. Part of the program will also be available during the retrospective at the Slovenian Film Database, where you will be able to view their other works.  

In their work, the author duo Velušček-Medved focuses on exploring the Slovenian-Italian border area. In doing so, the authors subtly delineate the personal and the public spheres: they draw on intimate narratives and vivid testimonies of individuals, from their personal archives, which they connect to the history of grand narratives, thereby carefully revealing the polyphony of historical Truth. As Ervin Hladnik Milharčič notes in Mesto na travniku (Town in a Meadow, 2004), there are always at least two truths at the border: the Soča is the Isonzo, the Miracle at Kobarid is the Disaster at Kobarid, Nova Gorica becomes old after crossing Europe Square...

Their work of researching memory and creating an archive has proven to be extremely important, as they have captured the memories of generations that were slowly disappearing. This gesture gave rise to several different film projects, including Ordinacija spomina (The Memory Clinic, 2010), Sešiti spomini (Stitched Memories, 2015), and Podobe pozabe (Images of Oblivion, 2015). The search for the almost invisible traces of memory, trauma, and, last but not least, the soul of a place is woven through various themes by the authors: the city plays a major role—the once completely new Yugoslav city of Nova Gorica and, on the other hand, the "old" Italian Gorizia, e.g., in the films Mesto na travniku (City on the Meadow) and Moja meja (My Border) (2002); they also explore the landscape and people through the Soča River, with their research marked by a strong ecological awareness, e.g., in the films Trenutek reke (2010), Ujeta voda (2014), and Beli oblak (2021). They reflect on the role of art in society and the relationship between art and their native landscape in documentary notes and films that accompany the famous cultural center of Topolovo, e.g., in the film Običaj in prevara (Custom and Deception, 2010). Their first feature-length documentary, Forget me not (2025), which explores memories of World War II, will also be presented.

Since the Velušček-Medved duo mainly produces medium-length documentaries, we have created a series of film pairs to review their creative oeuvre. We wanted to design the program in such a way that the paired films would repeatedly articulate the boundary and the borderline—as if we were moving from Nova Gorica to ''Old'' Gorizia, from modernist architecture to the old town center—and give us a sense of the transition that fundamentally characterizes the work of Anja Medved and Nadja Velušček. The opening screening of the film Mesto na travniku (City on the Meadow), dedicated to the history of Nova Gorica, is juxtaposed with Spovednica tihotapcev (Smuggler’s Confessional, 2010), in which people recall memories of a place marked by the border.

The retrospective will be presented in seven sections, complemented by discussions with the authors:
Zone of Transition I: Gorizia / Nova Gorica, 17 December 2025
Zone of Transition II: Memory / Document, 21 January 2026
Zone of Transition III: Environment / Territory, 18 February 2026
Zone of Transition IV: Water Level / Watercourse, 24 March 2026
Zone of Transition V: Peace / War, 21 April 2026
Zone of Transition VI: Violence / Compassion, 8 May 2026
Zone of Transition VII: Departures / Arrivals, 10 June 2026

The retrospective of Anja Medved and Nadja Velušček was curated by Vesna Bukovec and Robert Kuret, and the program is being prepared by SCCA-Ljubljana and the Slovenian Cinematheque in collaboration with the KINOkašča/CINEMAttic Institute, Kinoatelje, European Capital of Culture 2025 Nova Gorica - Gorizia, the Divja misel Institute, and the Slovenian Film Database. 

A catalogue with an in-depth accompanying study by Dr. Andrej Šprah will also be published to accompany the retrospective. The catalogue is co-published by the Slovenian Cinematheque and the European Capital of Culture 2025 Nova Gorica - Gorizia.

More information and the screening schedule can be found on the websites of the Slovenian Cinematheque and SCCA-Ljubljana.