Nino Jurlina: Ubuntu interview

27 / 11 / 2024 / Interview

Inter­view by: Nikola Racan

Whenev­er I think of you an image of Clint East­wood pops into my head. You both still make movies, although both of you say “This is def­in­itely my last film…”.

I hope it’s an image from the young­er days, haha. Ubuntu is a video that some­how came auto­mat­ic­ally after Broth­ers, the film­ing just kept going. Some­how it always felt nat­ur­al to save the good clips for some­thing more ser­i­ous, while the edits served more as a pre­view of the dir­ec­tion 2impl3 was head­ing. I found the word’s mean­ing in the rela­tion­ship between the skater and the per­son film­ing. These two are essen­tial parts of every clip and the res­ult is actu­ally a product of your com­bined energy.

First and fore­most, I see myself as a skater and only then as a cam­era­man. Over time it became very exhaust­ing to be both, plus I had to motiv­ate people around me. It wears you out, espe­cially if you con­stantly have to travel because Rijeka is a ghost town. A lot of glitched key clips, broken cam­er­as, and the loss of a hard drive with 30% of the videos + tapes (apart­ment burg­lary, 2019) are reas­ons why I said mul­tiple times that this is the last film. Self-ini­ti­at­ive and the desire for pro­gress is some­thing that draws me to people but I feel like that “dis­ap­peared with time” in soci­ety so maybe it is time for a healthy break or someone’s fresh start.

Tell me a bit about your con­nec­tion with Mar­tin and the Evol crew from Ger­many. Your friend­ship is now on a high­er level because you are also cre­at­ing and work­ing together.

Mar­tin Lauten­bach is a spe­cial per­son. “The pro­fess­or”, a skate nerd and a very good friend.
We met in 2022 and after see­ing some parts in Broth­ers we decided to do one of the last trips for his Evol video in Rijeka. Our acquaint­ance, through skate dis­cus­sions and film­ing, grew into a great syn­ergy of like-minded people doing what they love. Two weeks later, we were skat­ing togeth­er in Ber­lin. A year later, they had their video premiere at VFF. Simple.
Mar­tin and the whole Evol crew are the kind of skaters who help you nev­er for­get why you star­ted skat­ing in the first place. I’m grate­ful for every skate trip and ses­sion we’ve had and I’m espe­cially happy that I man­aged to do a small part for the video with Martin.
Often, when some­thing dies, some­thing else unex­pec­tedly emerges to replace it. If you can recog­nize that, the pro­cess just keeps going. It doesn’t stop.

You’ve stayed true to your style. Smpl Skate Co. has become a strong (loc­al) brand, which makes you an excep­tion in this region. What is cur­rently your biggest chal­lenge and who else is behind Smpl?

Thank you. I wouldn’t say strong but per­haps con­sist­ent with the healthy idea of what skat­ing rep­res­ents or what it used to rep­res­ent before I star­ted the brand.
The skate­board is just a tool for reach­ing hap­pi­ness and every video or edit is just a small remind­er of health­i­er times. I know that some­times change is neces­sary but it seems like in skate­board­ing the only required change is going back­ward. I feel like my (Simple) duty is just to exist, not to impose. Who­ever recog­nizes them­selves in that is the type of per­son who isn’t inter­ested in the industry but in sunny weather.

I hope that the biggest chal­lenge right now will also be a great relief. I plan to leave the cam­era behind and just skate without think­ing about which trick would fit best with which beat. I’m a bit burned out from film­ing and clean­ing tapes for a while. There are no tapes left either…
Anoth­er chal­lenge is fig­ur­ing out how to find new col­lect­ive motiv­a­tion in a city, a coun­try without a skate scene or new spots, keep­ing in mind that mov­ing again isn’t an option.
Mihael Šandro is an inspir­ing, patient per­son without whom 2impl3 def­in­itely wouldn’t have a cur­rent visu­al iden­tity. He filmed most of my clips and that cre­ated a bond that las­ted over ten years. Film­ing manu­als, battles over vec­tors, the Chris­ti­ania times — these are situ­ations that cre­ate a unique friend­ship and out­look on life.
Šandro, like Mar­tin and Enrico, are people whose energy cre­ates new oppor­tun­it­ies and ideas so there’s no chal­lenge that we can’t solve together.
I’m writ­ing this to you now… some of my vis­ions… one joint too much…

Some­times I feel like skate­board­ing is like the sea — the deep­er you go, the scar­i­er and dark­er it gets (the industry)… even though you know how to swim it still doesn’t feel right because the shore is far away now…
On the shore is his­tory, we enjoy the shal­low water but today every­one wants to go bey­ond the hori­zon… and in the end they end up on a boat and hate shal­low water just because they skip the shore… you get me?
Here and there I put some­thing on paper and it really reminded me of this ques­tion from below… We’re strug­gling with the fact that there’s a very thin line between „noth­ing“ and „some­thing“ here in Croa­tia. Unfor­tu­nately, the scene here is a mess so you start to appre­ci­ate every shared moment you have. As video edit­ors, we some­times mees up because our decisions are guided by emo­tion and so we put too much on the side „some­thing“ instead of „noth­ing“. „Noth­ing“ is „some­thing“, but not neces­sar­ily for that video…
Noth­ing and Something
… noth­ing is also something;
Because if noth­ing was only nothing
And if some­thing was only something
Where would be the opportunity
To cre­ate some­thing from nothing
That maybe won’t…
Fear nothing.
n.j., 2017

 

What interests me in your cre­at­ive pro­cess is the broth­erly bond vis­ible in almost every edit as well in the film Broth­ers (2018). We’ve talked about how import­ant is to say “no” in the pro­cess of author mat­ur­a­tion. Could you explain that “No” and why, in the end, it’s actu­ally the only pos­it­ive answer in the film­mak­ing process?

In life as well as in skat­ing you real­ize that an hon­est „No“ is worth more than a luke­warm „Yes“ because over time that „Yes“ pile still turns into a „No“. The in-between is just the time when emo­tions fade, wheth­er they’re tied to a skater, a trick, or the author of the video. The object­ive goal is clear from the start but often the clash between ambi­tion and real­ity is too great so stand­ards eas­ily drop, cre­at­ing small „Yes“ piles. Some­times less is more. That’s where hon­est cri­tique is worth more than a pat on the back (a Croa­tian problem).

It’s easy when you’re filming/skating with people who trust you and under­stand that the mes­sage of the whole video is great­er than the indi­vidu­al part or a spe­cif­ic trick. It’s on us, the edit­ors, to jus­ti­fy the inves­ted time and the skaters’ trust. To make the final res­ult pos­it­ive for every­one. I believe a good video isn’t just about tricks and match­ing music, it’s more about what hap­pens in between. What stays after.

The broth­erly bond — I think that feel­ing comes from the fact that I choose to skate with people who are aware that none of us knows how to skate. We’re just try­ing to do our best at some­thing that made us who we are today and we’re grate­ful for that.
For the end, three ques­tions from three buddies:

Nino has a the­ory that a really good part needs a late flip, so my ques­tion is: Why does he think that every really good skate part needs a late flip? Excited to hear his skate ner­dery! — Martin

The com­bin­a­tion of cre­ativ­ity, skill, and style is what makes a part watch­able and fun so that „late flip” doesn’t have to be a late flip but rather some­thing „new” that makes your part uniquely yours.
sorry, salaban­zi flip, row­ley dark­slide, sarry mir­ror tricks, 2 bowie songs
really sorry, pj, silence is golden
menikmati, cre­ager, bon­jur fred, no compy flip curb
SHS, wray, line before cars­bad fs flip/boss emer­ica first line
the storm, scott pazelt
adio, kenny ander­son nosemanual
dan dre­hobl, cigarets
hab­it­at mosaic.
those kinds of „late flips“…

 

“Jam­ie Thomas meth­od” (tricks and lines mostly filmed to the music and your song choice) in your parts? — Marin

Every part is a seg­ment of someone’s life where tricks and spots rep­res­ent their vis­ion of skate­board­ing. Music should fol­low the skater’s char­ac­ter and, if pos­sible, that peri­od in their life. I’m not say­ing that is a rule, it is just my take on edit­ing and watch­ing skate videos.

I like when parts have hid­den details and per­son­al­ity traits of the skater that the eye doesn’t catch dur­ing the first watch. What’s cer­tain is that the ear suf­fers less than the eye and many parts are skipped just because of a cer­tain song. The song leads the part while the tricks fol­low, not the oth­er way around. Skat­ing and music go hand in hand so I selfishly take the role of choos­ing the music for all the parts/edits.
(Sol­stice and Tab­ula Rasa are excep­tions… you know, as we already dis­cussed, the pro­ject is big­ger than the part…)

Ask him what he thinks — will Adri­an Beng return to polit­ics or stay on the ship? — Rale 

Beng nev­er really left polit­ics, the com­pany is on the field.
The cap­tain is def­in­itely com­ing back, even if only for the bs flip he owns.
You could do him with the fish so we will have a clip for the new video right away…
Thanks to every­one who par­ti­cip­ated in mak­ing this video. Spe­cial thanks to Mihael Šandro, Enrico Ziwes, Raul Žgomba. Thanks for the inter­view, Niđo, I didn’t make it yes­ter­day, sorry. We’ll talk soon. Keep pushin’!