Rapping his way to the stage, popular Croatian rap musician Edo Maajka opened the 19th Motovun Film Festival in front of packed audience in Motovun’s main square yesterday.

The opening ceremony started with the greetings of Motovun Mayor Tomislav Pahović and Istrian County Prefect Valter Flego and it later turned into tumultuous whistle-blowing of the 700-strong audience in the festival’s central cinema.

By blowing multicolored whistles over a few catharsis-filled minutes, the audience blew off the steam accumulated over the past six months, protesting against all those who had tormented us with their political skirmishing.

The whistles that ensued were of different nature: they were dedicated to the festival laureates Nenad Puhovski and Želimir Žilnik, other festival guests and our volunteers who will be working non-stop for the next five days.

Edo Maajka’s beat also took a different course: after political verses he moved to more relaxed songs and invited the audience to unanimously declare the festival open.

Sean Baker’s indie hit Tangerine was shown in the main square and Slack Bay, a film by great French filmmaker Bruno Dumont, screened in Cinema Billy, also in front of packed audience.

In addition to some one hundred films to be shown in five festival days, a series of concerts (Kawasaki 3P, Jonathan, Nipplepeople and Italian psychedelic folk sensation Kalascima), discussions, round tables, promotions and street performances will be taking place as part of Where Were You in 2016 program.

The party will continue till the morning with Edo Maajka’s concert.