Andrej Zdravič

A philosophical meditation on a young Tomaž Pengov, one of the greatest musicians in Slovenian history and the author of many timeless songs, some of which will accompany him on this cinematic journey through his world. Pengov’s legacy features ‘Odpotovanja’, the first singer-songwriter record released in the former Yugoslavia.

"In Zdravic's film we see imagination reconstitute Nature through Technology. The process is complicated; cruel, yet caring, beautiful and grotesque. The result– a hand, let us say, whose missing thumb is now a toe– is at one and the same time magnificent in its revobered grave and monstrous in its form. Looking at such an image, we must question all 'natural' sentiment and aethetic 'givens,' for Zdravic's film has shown us the deeper beauties of imperfection." -Dick Blau

Via Sound is a string of vignettes from a trip to Italy and Yugoslavia. As the title implies, this film should be seen through listening. The Super 8 medium offered the exciting possibility of editing in-camera both sound and images simultaneously.

The flying newspapers seemed to behold in their movements all the nuances of a life full of energy and thrill as well as loneliness. I spent many months stalking the empty streets of lower Manhattan looking for my 'friends', only to find them at times sadly lingering in the windless gutters, and at others, run over by traffic, and still others, soaring with a youthful joy towards the sky - in spite of it all. So in retrospect, Breath could perhaps be seen as a diary of life in New York City.

I dedicated Phenix to my father Franjo Zdravič, reconstructive surgeon, because he opened a new world of beauty and meaning for me. For some two weeks he led my way through rooms of very special climate - Ljubljana Medical Centre Burns Department - where threads of sighs, of nightmarish dreams, of misery, of compassion, of joy, are woven with hands of calm determination: to inflict wounds to a living being in order to give him/her a new form and function. - AZ