Antonio Nuić
LOOPING
A man adrift in time and space returns nightly to the same bar, trapped in grief, memory, and habit.
SYNOPSIS
Franjo and Filip are the last guests at a bar. After a strange night drive guided by the GPS voice Mila, they end up at the same bar—but hours earlier. Time loops. Characters repeat actions. Franjo, a man broken by divorce, grief, and alcoholism, becomes trapped in an eerie cycle of returning to the same night, the same bar, with small but unsettling changes each time. He sees versions of himself, dead friend Filip appears, and Mila transforms into his ex-wife Ivana, urging him to seek help. The past, regret, and loss pull Franjo into confusion and despair. But in a climactic moment, guided by a spectral Filip, he speeds through a black hole of time and breaks free—landing in real life, in the real world, on a quiet night street, gasping for breath. After so long, Franjo is finally present.
DIRECTOR
Antonio Nuić
PRODUCER
Boris T. Matić, Lana Matić
WRITER
Antonio Nuić
CO-PRODUCERS
Merve Sena Kilic Haznevi, Emir Kulal Haznevi, Mike Downey
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Propeler Film
COUNTRY
Croatia, Türkiye
CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY
Moses Film
GENRE
Fiction
Antonio Nuić
ANTONIO NUIĆ was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1977. He earned a Master’s degree in Film Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where he now teaches as an Associate Professor in several directing courses. Nuić writes the screenplays for the films he directs. He is also an artistic advisor for the Zagreb Film Festival and has served multiple terms as president and member of the Board of the Croatian Directors’ Guild. He has received numerous awards for both screenwriting and directing.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Looping is a film about a man lost in time and space—about Franjo’s personal collapse and the internal labyrinth from which he cannot escape. By displacing the story from a realistic frame and placing it in a cyclical space of a night bar and empty streets, the film explores midlife crisis, loss, and the illusion of reality. Structured in six sequences and an epilogue set in the real Zagreb, the narrative supports the sense of entrapment and psychological standstill. Technically innovative, shot in a virtual studio using LED screens and game engine technology, the film blends a teal-orange visual palette with silence and music performed by the actors themselves. With Franjo Dijak and Filip Šovagović in the lead roles, Looping is both an intimate psychological drama and a formal experiment—a film that seeks to break free from the gravity of Croatian realism.
Boris T. Matić
BORIS T. MATIĆ was born in 1966. He holds a Master’s degree in Media Arts and Practices. In his youth, he was involved in music and visual arts. He worked for seven years at Radio 101 as a journalist, off-air producer, and head of promotion, during which time he wrote and produced around 300 radio commercials. Since 1996, he has been engaged in cinematography in all its aspects, primarily as a film producer. In 1999, he was one of the founders of the Motovun Film Festival and served as its first director. In 2001, he founded the production company Propeler Film. The films he has produced have won around 200 awards worldwide. Since 2003, he has been the founder and director of the Zagreb Film Festival, through which, together with other board members, he managed Croatia’s most significant art cinema – Kino Europa in Zagreb – for 11 years. In 2016, Kino Europa received the Europa Cinemas Award for Best Programming in Europe. He has written and directed two short fiction films and two experimental films. He is the recipient of three Grand Golden Arenas for Best Film at the national festival in Pula (1997, 2006, and 2018), the Grand Prix at Days of Croatian Film for Best Film (2017), and the Oktavijan Award for Best Minority Co-production (2020). He has received honorary plaques from the Municipality of Motovun and the City of Zagreb. He is a member of the European Film Academy and the Croatian Producers Association, where he has served multiple terms on both the Management and Supervisory Boards, and was its president for two terms.
Production company profile
PROPELER FILM is a production company founded in 2001, led by Boris T. Matić and Lana Matić. They have produced nearly 50 feature and documentary films, awarded at over 200 festivals. Notable successes include films by Antonio Nuić and co-productions such as Father (Berlinale) and Circles (Sundance). They also launched the Zagreb Film Festival and VoD platforms croatian.film.
Where are we at?
TOTAL ESTIMATED BUDGET
650.000 €
NEEDED FOR COMPLETION
50.000 €
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