Under similar reflections on the influence of film industry on formation of identity; the installation / setting - the cinema apparatus – a 16mm projector with 16mm film in a constant loop puts a universal light on the title Staging Actors/Staging Beliefs.
"In her 16 mm film Poljak focuses solely on the motif of snow; she arranges and shoots the fake snow falling, lit by reflectors on a theater stage. This silent, uninterrupted footage of the snow falling and gradually covering the stage, made by a steady camera and accompanied only by a repetitive sound of the film projector in a dark screening room, becomes a poignant, poetic metaphor.
As in many of Poljak's previous works, personal memory and form of (auto)biography act as the starting points to create a complex examination; this time, on the iconic power of cinematic images in representing and circulating ideologies and political agendas, and shaping cultural memory. While in the video component the artist undermines linear consistent narratives and intertwines past and present, collective memories and individual universes, historical facts and generated realities, though the poetic film projection she more directly speaks to the viewer, and creates an immersive ambiance for reflection. "*
Next to the projection there is a short text about the star actor - Slavko Štimac.
Slavko Štimac was one of the most famous actors from Yugoslavia who started his successful career as a child. Through his roles he embodied the entire ideology of Tito - communism, socialism, Yugoslavia, brotherhood and unity. Renata’s generation grew up with him as a child on the screen believing in the same ideals for which he was fighting on the screen.
Film Train in the Snow narrated a story of solidarity and collective responsibility of the children acting together, and self- organizing themselves in an effort to dig out a train stuck in the blizzard during their school trip. The movie gained a large support within the agendas of Yugoslav youth organizations; similar to Boshko Buha, it influenced generations of people growing up in Yugoslavia.
His position of a star, fell apart after the breakup of Yugoslavia, as one cannot be a film star in the country which doesn't exist any more.
This 16mm film, as a kind of a metaphor via this missing actor, is also a hommage to the artist's childhood and its belonging political system, to Yugoslavia - the country she lived until the war - the artist age of 17teen, it is a memory on Slavko Štimac, on Yugoslav film industry ... regrouped under the title: Staging Actors/Staging Beliefs.