Albert Kapovic, head of the Croatian Audio Visual Center and for the past four years the country's national representative to Eurimages, the Council of Europe's cinema support fund, died Dec. 19 in Zagreb following a heart attack. He was 51.
Colleagues at the Audio Visual Center - Croatia's governing film agency that Kapovic helped found early last year - said that although he had a history of high blood pressure his death was sudden and unexpected.
Kapovic, whose funeral in Zagreb, Dec. 24 was attended by more than 200 mourners including leading figures from the Croatian and former Yugoslav film industry, was known throughout the Balkans and central Europe as an active and energetic advocate of Croatian film.
A producer, film school teacher, co-founder and executive secretary of the Croatian Producers Association, as head of the audio-visual center Kapovic had recently taken the AV Center into membership of European Film Promotion, the European Union's MEDIA program-backed body.
Kapovic had ambitious plans for using the AV Center's influence to help increase Croatian film production and raise its profile internationally.
In an interview with
Variety last July during a visit to the 55th Pula Film Festival, Kapovic forecast that Croatian film production would increase by some 50% annually within the coming years as a new system of state subsidies delivered via the AV Center began to take effect.
Born in Livno, southwestern Bosnia, Kapovic grew up in the Croatian Adriatic coast town of Split before moving to Belgrade, Serbia to study producing.
In a long and varied professional career he worked as a researcher, project manager, theater, film and television producer at home and abroad.
From 1988-1995 Kapovic worked with a range of French television and production companies, including TF1, FR3, Antenne, Arkeion Films and Cosmos Film.
He was assistant director on a number of projects including Alain Ferrari and Bernard-Henri Levy's 1994 feature length documentary "Bosna!"
On his return to Croatia, Kapovic worked until 1997 with the Croatian Journalists Association on training projects, legal initiatives and freedom of the media, while continuing to work for French clients as a producer of commercials.
Between 1997 and 2004 he was head of production at specialist animation studio Zagreb Film before in 2005 becoming a lecturer in production at Zagreb's academy of dramatic arts. He spent two years as a production consultant to the Croatian ministry of culture, 2006-2007, during which time he lobbied for the new legal framework that culminated in the opening in spring 2008 of the Croatian AV Center, of which he was appointed chief executive.
Kapovic is survived by his wife Ida and a son.
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