Predictions of Fire screened three times on the first weekend of the 46th annual Berlin Film Festival. The film was included in the Panorama Documentary Section, and received a remarkably concentrated attention (the question-and-answer session after the premiere screening, Saturday night Feb. 17th at Atelier Am Zoo, went on for 40 minutes!). As had been hoped, the Berlin audience in particular was provoked by many of the issues raised in the film. Attendance was helped by a positive German-language review of the film in the Feb. 17th issue of Moving Pictures. The lengthy post-screening discussion even made headlines in Slovenia's major daily paper, Delo, and a number of festival invitations followed in rapid succession. What follows is the catalogue description from the Berlinale:

1996 Berlin Film Festival Catalogue Description

Since the early 80s the Slovenian city of Ljubljana has become synonymous with the industrial rock of the former underground band, Laibach. In the meantime Yugoslavia has crumbed, Slovenia is an independent state and Laibach, whose use of seemingly fascist iconography once created shock waves, are still around.

Even then, Laibach was always more than just a simple rock band; they represented New Slovene Art, or NSK. Besides being a band, NSK were and are the painting group "Irwin" and the theater group "Irwin". Ostensibly organized according to a strict bureaucracy, they now represent a virtual mini-state within the small state of Slovenia. Only recently, NSK have begun to open embassies abroad -- in Moscow, Venice and Japan -- where they issue their own passports.

This film provides a detailed portrait of the artistic scope of NSK's work. By setting this against the backdrop of the history of ex-Yugoslavia, this documentary also provides an insight into the current Balkan conflict.

(unsigned)