Images de fruits rêvées par de vieux paysans en hiver is a photography installation centered on the idea of fruits as objects of desire. It contemplates on the fascination and devotion that fruits inspired in people throughout history, especially before they became a part of mass-produced global trade. Devoid of their original shapes and aromas as well as of stories that made them locally distinct, the supermarket fruits of today are pretty much alike all around the world - standardized shells of promise, figurative representation of the market economy.
Filmmaker and researcher of autochthonous fruit varieties Gregor Božič sets on a quest to discover places in Europe, where locally grown fruits still hold a significant communal and cultural role. He starts his journey in winter: he observes the resting but resilient fruit trees and converses with old farmers, who spend this time imagining the fruits that will grow on trees in a few months. He discovers abandoned orchards overgrown with weeds and bushes, phantomlike monuments enduring the passage of time in the midst of industrialized fields, resembling 17th century landscape paintings or drawings from children’s books. A phantom Pan-European jungle.
Giuseppe Barbera, Gaetano La Placa, Cooperativa Petraviva Madonie, Mattilde Riccioli, Cooperativa agricola Zaufanah, Giuseppe lo Pilato, Elisabeth Journolleau, Vergers retrouvés du Comminges, Paul van Laer, Nationale Boomgaardenstichting
Born in Nova Gorica, during the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. He studied film directing at the AGRFT (Akademija za gledališče, radio, film in televizijo) in Ljubljana and at the DFFB in Berlin (Die Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin). Apart from working as a film director and DOP (Playing Men, 2017, Oroslan, 2019), Gregor also conducts a longitudinal research on Mediterranean autochthonous fruit varieties. In 2012, he collaborated with farmers from the Italo-Slovene borderland in setting up a gene bank orchard. His debut feature Stories from the Chestnut Woods had its world premiere at the Toronto IFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2019 and was screened at numerous international film festivals since.
Cursus2016 - diploma in Film directing (post-graduate)
Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) / Germany
2009 - university diploma in Film and TV directing
Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT) / Slovenia