TWO PORTRAITS WITH BACKGROUND
emulsion on celluloid, 16 mm x 242 m, 1994 – 2000

Maja and Irena studied together at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana; they met already on their very first day during the entrance exams and stayed friends ever since.

Maybe it is the time they spent together creating that made them look similar. Some people think they are sisters. A film taped over several years in an unconventional way (animated) and the intervening of their work – the painting of an exhibition… as well as their lives, kids, families, friends… Their works can be admired by the passer-by on church walls, town hall walls…. they are both painting frescoes as they used to be painted in the past – onto fresh plaster. It is a complicated technique, since the artists paints only the part of the wall prepared by the mason. While painting on fresh plaster, they has to give her best: once the plaster becomes solid, there is no possibility for corrections anymore…

In front of our eyes paintings are being created – the work of several days in a couple of minutes… They continue the work of Maja’s father, the painter Ivo Šubic, who was very keen to revive the fresco painting, especially in the Poljane valley, where he worked for most of the time… They work together well in a tandem, as well as they work well on their own: illustrating, painting on wood, canvas, stone, with egg tempera … Time is a relative notion; children are being born, grow up, frescoes are being created – and they will last forever…

It is a “family” film experimenting with animation, a portrait of two original artists. The director Amir Muratović followed with a camera their lives and work over the years...