SPARKS IN TIME
(Des étincelles dans le temps)
81 minutes, 2021
Director : Jurij GRUDEN (Slovenia)
Production : Senca Studio (Slovenia), Avi Film (Slovenia) in coproduction with RTV Slovenia (Slovenia)
The year is 1978. A group of electrical engineering students set up a computer company, Iskra Delta Computers, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In the United States this was the era of Bill Gates, Gary Kildall, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Iskra Delta had a meteoric rise, in 1985 it built the world’s first and largest computer network in China. When the company’s technology became too powerful and too wide-spread it attracted the attention of the CIA, who wanted to prevent the enemy from gaining access to it. On the other side, the KGB saw Iskra Delta Computers as a last chance to fill the gaps in Soviet computing. The company also had problems with the Yugoslav secret police, the UDBA, and the local authorities – which demanded kick-backs. On top of that, Yugoslavia was facing a violent war.
Jurij GRUDEN was born in 1975 in Trieste, Italy. In 1996, he entered the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and graduated in film and television directing. During his studies he made short documentaries such as Images of the City (1998), followed by short drama films You Need to Love Somebody (2001), Moving Away (2002) and Waiting (2003, winning the Babic Award for student television drama short film). He has since directed several documentaries including: Sparks In Time (2021), Coffee Time (2016), Living Stone (2014), Music from Trieste to Tarvisio (2010). He is currently working on another documentary: From Sevnica to the White House (in post-production).