Ljubljana film fest turning 30, staying focused on quality art film

LIFFe, a hugely popular festival that has also spread to Maribor, Celje and Novo Mesto, began in 1990 at Ljubljana's Cankarjev Dom arts centre as what was known as the international days of author film or Film Art Fest. There were 13 films screened the first year and some 4,000 visitors.

The first director of the festival was Jelka Stergel, today the head of the Slovenian Film Festival, while the programme director was the founder to the Slovenian cinematheque, the late Silvan Furlan. The two sought to complement the commercial cinema network with a distribution and theatre network that would also showcase international art cinema.

Stergel led the festival until its 18th edition, when Popek became the face of the festival, which became known as LiFFe in 1997.

Popek, who used to be the editor of Slovenia's foremost film magazine Ekran, has segmented the...