‘Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy’ or in Czech language ‘Monstrum z Galaxie Arkana’, was a Croatian-Czech feature film from 1981st, directed by Dusan Vukotic. Older Dubrovnik citizens will remember the shooting on Lokrum. But everyone should know about the rare science fiction movie created in Croatia, and filmed at Dubrovnik locations. Jan Svankmajer made the special effects and Jasna Novak produced the costumes. It the past the movie was considered as avant-garde, while current generations would place it in ‘trash’ category. Besides the excellent cast, this is the first appearance of Rene Bitorajac as a boy, later a successful Croatian actor!
The film: While working as a doorman at a hotel, Robert was obsessed with SF and intended to write a novel about three android-aliens. He called them Andri, Targu and Ulu who arrived from an advanced planet in distant Galaxy Arkana. But his neighbors – girl Biba and Tino, the photographer, constantly interrupted him. But one day his colleague tried to help him and he told him to put a monster in the story, just to attract the reader’s attention; Robert decided to create a figure of a huge pet Mumu. After he had done that one night he heard a woman’s voice on a tape recorder. She invited him to a nearby island …
The film won several awards among them at the festival of fiction Fantasporto in Porto (1984), International Award of fantasy and scenario in Trieste in 1981, first Special Jury Award, Imagfic (Madrid) in 1982, jury Award for the best mask, the Audience Award at Cadiz in 1982, and the grand prize for best director in Brussels in 1983.
