Marjuta Slamič
A woman who killed her man has served her sentence. She sails through town; she sails through scenes of life. A girl sees her, forgives her, and saves her. The woman has done her thing. The world finally embraces her again.
The focus is on the disintegration of an idyllic relationship between parents, Marko and Dunja. This is due to a lack of respect, caused by loss of employment and a financial breakdown. In time, the parents are no longer able to bear their burden, which is thus increasingly weighing their children down. In Slovenia, the story from The Basics of Killing occurs on a daily basis, but it could happen anywhere. To those familiar with the phenomenon, the film will be a painful experience, to others, may it be a warning.
Albert is an elderly man, a cynic, a choleric, and a racist. He lives in a wheelchair in a spacious flat in Trieste surrounded with his solitude of obsessive memory fragments, in which his unresolved relations with family members reside as he had distanced himself from them long time ago. His only contacts with reality are Ida on one hand, an educated middle-aged lady, who arrives from Istria to Albert's place twice a week to clean up, cook for him and to bathe him, and Albert's looking through the window on the other hand. That day Albert's and Ida's time together starts with Albert's nagging, him being cynical and aggressive. Ida puts up with his horrible communication with dignity and peace, but that ignites Albert's malicious behaviour even more.
Three almost middle-aged men decide to open up a pizzeria in the neighbourhood of Šiška in Ljubljana.
Paolo, 40 years old, lives in a small Friulian town close to the north-eastern border. Unreliable and with a passion for good wine, he spends his days at the local tavern and stubbornly stalks his ex-wife.
The main protagonists of the film are members of the gypsy family Mirga. Lutvija Belmondo Mirga narrates a story about four generations. Belmondo is the central character of the film, a gypsy king, who decided to establish his own gypsy village. He names it Shanghai. Belmondo makes a living smuggling and his power and influence grow big. He even gets the local police and politics on his side and that helps him to become untouchable for law. But with the downfall of Yugoslavia, smuggling of goods is replaced by smuggling of the arms. Though lucrative the business starts to threaten Belmondo’s personal life and he finds himself at the crossroads. Will he protect his own family or is he going to sacrifice his personal happiness for business ambitions?
A man stays alone with his children in a half demolished house in the middle of a desolate field. His wife has just been killed by a grenade in a military battle. He is expecting a new attack. Instead a wandering caravan called Circus Fantasticus stops by the house. They bring along the dying director of the circus. Is it possible for anything beautiful to happen in a landscape of war and death? Can life go on? Is it possible to realize that death does not exist?
Tanya is 35, with a successful career. Her husband Mare is an architect. One Friday, Tanya comes home late at night. Mare confronts her and they exchange some edgy words; Mare is clearly jealous, he loses control of himself and slaps her in the face. Obviously, it is not the first such incident. Tanya locks herself in the bathroom. They continue their conversation over the locked doors. Mare calms down, but when Tanya comes from the bathroom, he becomes abusive again. The noise wakes up a neighbor who reports them to the police. The police arrive and the couple calms down. When the police leave, the couple resorts to psychological abuse. What follows is the night of hateful and skillful twisting of words that unveils, step by step, all the dark secrets of their relationship. Behind a facade of a successful couple, there are suppressed feelings of inferiority, weaknesses, deceit, frustration and traumas from their youth.
Peter is in his early forties and until recently he worked in a factory, but after Slovenia's integration into the European Union, the factory closed down and Peter and his colleagues have been made redundant. Slowly but surely, he is losing self-confidence and self-esteem.
