This short documentary shows a village festival with folk dancing and amateur singing, raconteur and beauty contests in Croatia’s Međimurje region. In the film, Krsto Papić pinpoints the failure of the socialist ideal of “people’s culture” that turned into an imitation of Western models. At the Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival in Belgrade in 1972, two of Papić’s films shared Grand Prix – this one and Special Trains. Ranko Mitić was an assistant camera in A Little Village Performance.

Ranko Mitić Mito: 50 Years Award
50 Years Award is given to Croatian filmmakers who have endured in film industry long enough to celebrate their Golden Jubilee. This year, our laureate is Ranko Mitić, who has been in filmmaking since 1967. Primarily as camera assistant, but also as director of photography, Mito made more than 300 films. He worked with Orson Welles, Pierce Brosnan and almost all greats of Croatian cinema, such as Papić, Žižić, Tanhofer, Krelja and Golik. After his first film, Gravitation Or the Fantastic Youth of Bank Clerk Boris Horvat (1967), Mitić worked on One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away, I Have Two Mothers and Two Fathers, Train Towards South, Dreaming the Rose, What Is a Man Without a Moustache, You Carry Me and more than a thousand corporate films. With a 55-year career behind him, Ranko Mitić belongs to a small group of dedicated and self-effacing artists behind the camera so essential for every film and cinematography in general.