Nord Cross Production

Nord Cross Production is a film and video production company founded in 2000 by directors and screenwriters Igor Zupe and Sašo Podgoršek, who first met as students at AGRFT in Ljubljana in the mid-1980s. They have since produced and directed numerous documentaries, music videos, art films and commercials, although by no means all of this work has arisen under the Nord Cross banner, which is carried by Zupe alone, as much a pseudonym as a name directly attached to this or that project. The two directors are perhaps best known for their long-standing association with Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), which has yielded a number of important documents on the careers of Laibach and Irwin in particular.

Zupe's earliest NSK-affiliated work was a short documentary film, Lepota in narod (Beauty and the Nation, 1986), produced as part of his studies at AGRFT. This was an attempt to embody the Irwin group's concept of the Heimat film and explore how film symbolism might address notions of home and homeland. Zupe provided a more extended, retrospective meditation on the group's work in Ženini (Bachelors, 2008), co-produced by RTV Slovenia and Studio Maj, which followed the artists as they exhibited their work around Europe between 2003 and 2007. Podgoršek's connections with NSK have been more directly with Laibach. In 2005 he directed Divided States of America, a documentary record of Laibach's 2004 North American tour, and has, over the years, become more or less the in-house director of Laibach's music videos.

The films produced by Zupe explicitly under the Nord Cross banner have continued to focus on art and music. The first of these, It's Alive (1997), was a record of Laibach's NATO tour in North America and the opening of the virtual NSK embassy in Sarajevo. Čas za novo državo (Time for a New State) (2013), produced in collaboration with Irwin, documented the first congress of NSK State citizens in Berlin, while Glasba je časovna umetnost 3: LP film Laibach (Music is the Art of Time 3: LP Film Laibach, 2018) addressed the band's hugely controversial 1985 debut album, and won the audience award for best music film at the 2018 Soundwatch Berlin Music Film Festival.

Zupe also examined the early days of NSK in Od Kapitala do kapitala: Države v času NSK (From Kapital to Capital, 2017), a television documentary produced by RTV Slovenia to coincide with a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana.

Laibach - So Long, Farewell (Official video film) by Laibach on YouTube

Two shorter Laibach films followed in 2019: a Nord Cross-produced official video for "So Long, Farewell" from the band's 2018 album The Sound of Music, and "4'33" Readymade Laibach", a typically sideways glance at John Cage's legendary silent score filmed at the Bačva Gallery in Zagreb and directed by Zupe (Staragara co-producing with Laibach).

Apart from Laibach, Nord Cross has produced two other documentaries on legendary Slovenian debut albums in the Music is the Art of Time series: on punk pioneers Pankrti (2006) and on the avant-garde prog band Buldožer (2017, directed by Varja Močnik).

Filmography

So Long, Farewell (official video film, dir. Igor Zupe, 2019)
Glasba je časovna umetnost 3: LP film Laibach (documentary, dir. Igor Zupe, 2018)
Glasba je časovna umetnost 2: LP film Buldožer – Pljuni istini u oči (documentary, dir. Varja Močnik, 2017)
Perpetuum Jazzile – The Show: Live in Arena (concert film, production by Nord Cross, 2014)
Čas za novo državo (documentary, dir. Igor Zupe, 2013)
Glasba je časovna umetnost: LP film Pankrti – Dolgcajt (documentary, dir. Igor Zupe, 2006)
It's Alive (documentary, dir. Igor Zupe, 1997)

Awards

Glasba je časovna umetnost: LP film Pankrti – Dolgcajt

Noisy Cat Award for Best Music Documentary, Grossman Festival, Ljutomer, Slovenia, 2008
Award for Best Music Film, DORF, Vinkovci, Croatia, 2007
Special Commendation for Music Documentary, Friška Figa Film Festival, Čakovec, Croatia, 2007

Glasba je časovna umetnost 3: LP film Laibach

Best Music Film, Soundwatch Berlin Music Film Festival, 2018

External links

Work

Nord Cross Production

Contents

Filmography

Awards

See also

External links

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