On the Way from Myself to a Friend

Once Upon a Youth (O jednoj mladosti, 2020) is a radical shift in Ivan Ramljak’s work. After Home of the Resistance (Dom boraca, 2018), Islands of Forgotten Cinemas (Kino Otok, 2016) and Mezostajun (2018), in which he thinks about the abandoned, unfilled spaces in terms of their historical and socio-political context, Ramljak turns his focus to the personal, the intimate. Like his short and medium-length films, Once Upon a Youth also originates in desolate places. The text considers Ramljak’s method in relation to Marko Čaklović’s sensitive photography.