University of Miami

Guardian of the Frontier Slovenia ? Germany ? 2002 ? Miami Premiere ? 100 min. Directed by: Maya Weiss Zana is to spend the summer holiday canoeing down the Kolpa River with party animal pal Alja and more conservative college roommate Simona. The girls are soon sunbathing nude and spending their evenings slinging raunchy sex talk. Things turn vaguely sinister when Simona encounters an oddly intense fisherman and is apparently seduced by him. Later, as the trio stumbles across a seemingly bucolic folk festival, the angler lets slip his thin veneer as smooth rural politico of the title, and reveals a raging nationalist bent in defending traditional Slovenian values. Weiss and co-scripters have cleverly woven regional politics and social identity into their story. With ravishing cinematography and music, the film shared Berlin fest?s third Laser Video Titrages/Manfred Salzgeber prize for ?innovative European feature film.?