“I am so proud and happy that ‘Rule No. 5: Shadow Your Man Closely’ has been accepted into the experimental film selection at Guanajuato. The multi-year process of creating this film departed from montage experiments inspired by music sampling and looping techniques, through Ivan Galeta’s ideas about expanded panoramas, to a single shot of Buster Keaton that served as the foundation of creativity. By the end of the image editing process, most of the collaborators working on the film opened up, contributing their dedication and talent to the film and lending it an overseas depth and breadth that reaches all the way to Mexico. To have the world premiere at such an important international festival is a great honour. And I’d also like to add a disclaimer that this film was not created in collaboration with artificial intelligence”, said Miro Manojlović on the occasion of Rule No. 5: Shadow Your Man Closely world premiere.

Drawing on the tradition of found footage, the train shot from Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. becomes the foundation for an experiment in which the film narrative is reconstructed and new dramatic conflicts are created through specific editing procedures. Rule No. 5: Shadow Your Man Closely envisions a new panorama in which zeros and ones of the digital world are the movement and non-movement of our hero who wants to complete his task at any cost. Standing in his way is someone with a different plan in mind.

Manojlović directed and edited the film, collaborating on the script with Luka Bosanac. Sound design was done by Hrvoje Pelicarić, while Anu Kovačić created the soundtrack. The film’s producer is Vedran Šuvar. 

The Mexican audiences in Guanajuato will also have a chance to see Juraj Lerotić’s multi-award-winning feature debut, Safe Place, which is a Pipser production (producer is Miljenka Čogelja). On top of its previous accolades, Safe Place has recently won the award for Best Director at the Mediterrane Film Festival, while the Filmmakers Association of Croatia selected it as Croatia’s candidate for the Goya Award of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences.

Also appearing at GIFF will be Croatian animation short Her Dress for the Final created by Martina Meštrović, which recently had its world premiere at Animafest Zagreb, immediately winning a Special Mention in the Croatian competition, and its international premiere at the prestigious Annecy IAFF. The film is about to screen at a host of film festivals, including Anibar, Supertoon, Animaphix and others. The film is a Kreativni sindikat production, with Igor Grubić as the producer.

The Guanajuato International Film Festival is one of the most important festivals in Central America, while its winning titles in the categories of short fiction, short documentary and short animation directly qualify for Oscar nominations.