Tales of Fruits and Monsters
Date:
December 15, 2022
Tales of Fruits and Monsters
Tales of Fruits and Monsters
by Gregor Božič
Nosorogi | Slovenia
Bocalupo Films | France
Live-action feature/Documentary | 2nd feature
*the access to our meeting platform and director’s previous works will start from January 10, 2025
Logline
After his mother’s death, Sergej sets out on a journey to find a rare pear from her childhood. From the abandoned Mediterranean orchards to the haunted forests in Japan, the quest eventually brings him to the labyrinths of his own imagination.
Synopsis
Just before she dies, Sergej’s mother starts dreaming of a special pear tree from her childhood. Sergej returns to his hometown on the Slovene-Italian border and decides to find the tree. But the task turns out to be more challenging than expected as even the oldest farmers have no clue about what he’s looking for. Sergej resorts to the regional archives and discovers a curious link between a Yugoslav botanist from the 1960s, who seems to have been on a quest for the same pear variety, and a paramilitary group that controlled the border after the 2nd World War. Sergej shares his discoveries on Instagram, catching the interest of a Japanese scientist named Nobuko. Joining forces, Sergei and Nobuko start researching the mysterious pear together, each on their side of the world. But one day Nobuko suddenly stops writing, which spirals Sergej into confusion, slowly twisting his perception of reality. He impulsively steals money from a friend and sets off to Japan…
Director’s Profile
Director, scriptwriter and cinematographer. After graduating from film schools in Ljubljana and DFFB Berlin, Gregor enrolled in the postgraduate program at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in France. His debut fiction STORIES FROM THE CHESTNUT WOODS was premiered at TIFF in Toronto in 2019 and screened at festivals all across the world. As a director of photography, he regularly collaborates with filmmakers from across the region, most notably with Nebojša Sljepčević (THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMAIN SILENT, 2024), Matjaž Ivanišin (PLAYING MEN, 2017, OROSLAN, 2021) and Igor Bezinović (FIUME O MORTE!). His work has been been presented at festivals in Cannes, Toronto, Locarno, Rotterdam, New York, Tallinn, Marseille, Nara, Shanghai and other. Since 2008, next to working on film, Gregor has also been passionately researching old and endemic fruit varieties. Collaborating with farmers from the Italo-Slovene borderland, in 2013 he planted a gene-bank orchard in Goriška brda and wrote a book on the cultural heritage of the found varieties of the Slovene-Italian borderland.
Company Profile
Founded by a group of young filmmakers in 2008, NOSOROGI is a Ljubljana-based studio specialising in development and production of independent short and feature films, in particularly such that blur the line between fiction and documentary. NOSOROGI provides comprehensive support for filmmakers’ creative pursuits, approaching each production as a research initiative while fostering international cooperation to eventually reach different art-house audience across the globe. Working on a small and carefully selected slate, the company also focuses on continuously supporting emerging filmmakers and on increasing the importance of the overall sustainability and solidarity within creative and administration processes. NOSOROGI’s filmography includes the titles PLAYING MEN (Matjaž Ivanišin, 2017), STORIES FROM THE CHESTNUT WOODS (Gregor Božič, 2019), FIUME O MORTE! (Igor Bezinović, 2024), etc.