STA, 16 September 2021 - The recipient of this year's Badjura Award, given out for lifetime achievements in film since 1995, is the innovator and film sound engineer Emilija Soklič, one of the first Slovenian professional female film industry workers. She will receive the award at the opening of the 24th Slovenian Film Festival on 12 October.
Born in 1918, Soklič began her professional career soon after WWII, when she became the first head of the technical department of Slovenian film studio Triglav Film as a trailblazer in a typically male profession.
She worked at Triglav Film until 1955. During this time, she was involved in the production of the first Slovenian feature film Na svoji zemlji (On Our Own Land, 1948) by France Štiglic.
This was followed by many other films that have become a part of Slovenian film heritage, including the first film in the adventure-youth film series Kekec by Jože Gale.
While working at Triglav Film, Soklič met sound engineer Rudi Omota, with whom she developed magnetic sound recording and contributed to the development and production of equipment for sound recording, processing and reproduction.
"The mixing tables created at that time were among the first in the world with integrated circuits and are now part of the collection of the Technical Museum of Slovenia," the award jury said.
"Emilija Soklič worked and created in conditions that are hard to imagine today, which required a great deal of dedication, courage, ingenuity, professionalism and humanity."
"The Badjura Award for Emilija Soklič's lifetime achievements is therefore an opportunity to pay tribute to a pioneer of the film profession and a cutting-edge innovator who changed the sound recordings in Slovenian cinema."
Soklič will be presented with the award at the opening ceremony of the 24th Slovenian Film Festival (FSF), which will take place from 12 to 17 October.
The Badjura Award was introduced in 1973 by the Slovenian Film Artists Association to honour various professions in the film industry.
In 1995, it started being conferred exclusively as a lifetime achievement award. Last year, it went to the pioneer of Slovenian short animated film Konrad "Koni" Steinbacher.
