A.A.C. Productions

A A C Productions was established in 1993 as one of the first (but not the first) independent film production companies in Slovenia. Like many other film directors active at that time, Igor Šterk also felt that having his own production company would offer him the best possible conditions to produce his own films. At first Šterk planned to use his company just for the production of his own films, but eventually A A C Productions also produced some shorts by other directors. Among them are Vlado Škafar's short experimental film Stari Most [The old bridge] (1998), which was shot in Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Sonja Prosenc's Nič novega, nič pretiranega [Free spirited friends] (2005).

Igor Šterk's feature films

Ekspres Ekspres [Gone with the train] – produced in 1995 but publicly premiered two years later, in 1997 – is regarded by many as the film that marked the beginning of the renaissance of Slovene cinema in the mid-1990s. With its international success it turned the attention of the international audience towards Slovene cinema again. Ekspres Ekspres won 15 international awards at film festivals (it is one of the most awarded films in the history of Slovene cinema), including the Grand Prix (Golden Antigone), the Audience and Critics Award in Montpellier (France), the Audience and "Findling" Award in Cottbus (Germany), the Grand Prix at Alpe Adria Festival in Trieste (Italy), the Special Jury Award at the Molodist Film Festival in Kiev (Ukraine) and in Tromso (Norway), the Coup de Coeur Award in Mons (Belgium) and the Best Foreign Film Award in Palić (Serbia), etc. With Ekspres Ekspres Slovene cinema also re-entered the European film distribution network after an absence of more than 20 years (Ekspres Ekspres was distributed in Germany during 1999–2000). The film also was quite successful on the domestic front since it won several awards at the Festival of Slovene Film in Portorož (1997) including awards for Best Director, Best Photography, and Best Sound, the FIPRESCI Award, and the STOP Magazine Award for Best Actor (received by Gregor Baković) – and attracted a much bigger audience to cinemas than was usual for Slovene film in the past 20 years (when Slovene film nearly lost its audience). For the directing of the film Igor Šterk received also the prestigious Prešeren Foundation Award.

Šterk's second feature Ljubljana – made in 2002 – was the first Slovene film ever to be screened in the competition programme at the Rotterdam Film Festival. It ran for the Tiger Award in 2002. Ljubljana was also later selected for many other important international festivals around the world (Karlovy Vary, Seattle, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Thessaloniki, Montpellier, etc.) but it didn't win any international awards. In the domestic sphere it won two Vesna Awards (Best Photography and Best Actor for Gregor Zorc) at the 2002 Festival of Slovene Film in Portorož and it became Šterk's commercially most successful film. Ljubljana is regularly included in retrospectives of contemporary Slovene film abroad (such as the Austrian National Film Festival in Graz in March 2003 or at the Chennai International Film Festival in New Delhi in 2008).

Tuning [Uglaševanje], the third feature film by Igor Šterk, also had an excellent festival start: its world premiere was in the competition programme of the 40th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2005. But the film's biggest success came later, in November 2005, with the 54th International Film Festival in Mannheim-Heidelberg where Tuning received the Main Award for the Best Feature Film. After that it also received the Vesuvio Award for the Best Feature Film at Napoli Film Festival. Its festival career went on with screenings at festivals all over Europe and America: Montreal, Chicago, Edinburgh, Buenos Aires, Ghent (competition), Montpellier (competition), Denver, Kerala, etc. At the 8th Festival of Slovene Film in 2005 it won the Vesna Award for Best Directing.

Šterk's most recent feature to date is 9:06. The absolute winner of the 2009 Festival of Slovene Film, it won the majority of the official awards, all in all 9 Vesna Awards: Best Film, Best Directing, Best Screenplay, Best Photography, Best Music, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Actor (Igor Samobor), Best Supporting Actress (Silva Čušin). Its international career started at the Montreal Film Festival with its international premiere and continued with the screening in the competition programme of the Montpellier Film Festival.

Short films

Since 1998 A A C Productions produced also three short films. The first one was the experimental, single shot film Stari most (Old Bridge, 1998) by Vlado Škafar. The shooting took place in Mostar - a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina where the well known Old Bridge is situated - shortly after the end of the last Balkan war, when at the place where the Old Bridge (destroyed during the war by the Croatian army) stood they built a provisory construction. In 2005 Sonja Prosenc's short fiction film Nič novega, nič pretiranega (Free Spirited Friends) was produced. It was a co-production between A A C Productions and Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV Slovenia). A new co-production - with E-motion Film/Vertigo, Radio-Television Slovenia (RTV Slovenia) and Viba Film Studio - followed in 2007 when Igor Šterk made his short fiction film Every Breath You Take. It was his second collaboration with the writer Sinisa Dragin (who became his regular collaborator on screenplays) and it was selected for the Venice festival's short film competition programme Corto Cortissimo in 2008.