Friday, June 23 at 19.30h
Ljutomer Main Square
This year’s guest of honour will be legendary American director John McTiernan who has reinvented action cinema in the 80s and 90s with worldwide hit films such as Predator, Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance and The Hunt for Red October.
After his first feature, atmospheric horror Nomads (1986), starring Pierce Brosnan, John McTiernan achieved worldwide fame with his next film Predator (1987), a unique blend of action, science fiction and horror with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the leading role. Predator turned into a huge franchise, comprised of four sequels and a prequel, as well as numerous novels, comic books and videogames, not to mention the additional Alien vs. Predator franchise.
In 1988, McTiernan directed even bigger hit film, action blockbuster Die Hard that turned Bruce Willis into an international superstar and spawned four sequels. Die Hard was pronounced one of the best action films of all time by numerous magazines, such as Empire, Entertainment Weekly and The Guardian. In 2017, it was selected by the United States Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 1995, McTiernan also directed the third film in the series, Die Hard with a Vengeance, another highly successful action masterpiece.
Among his more prominent films are also spy thriller The Hunt for Red October (1990) with Sean Connery, action-comedy Last Action Hero (1993) with Arnold Schwarzenegger, action adventure The 13th Warrior (1999) with Antonio Banderas, and crime thriller The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) with Pierce Brosnan.
On this year's Grossmann, we will honour him with a special retrospective of his films. He will also hold a Master Class, as well as a special Q&A and will be presiding the jury for the Vicious Cat, our best feature film award. At the closing ceremony, he will receive our honorary award.
