Singing Lent in Rogotin

Original title Korizma u Rogotinu

Lent is the period of forty days during which the Catholics prepare for the upcoming Easter. This is the period of sacrifice, when people abandon pleasure and entertainment and a time of fasting. In the village of Rogotin, in the valley of Neretva, the times are changing, as they usually do. The older villagers still remembers stricter rules of conduct during Lent, as well as some traditional prayers. Some were even fasting on bread and water on specific days. Interestingly enough, a coot, a type of marsh bird, has never been considered as meat and could be eaten even during Lent, as a type of fasting. The villagers of Rogotin abide to some of those rules, and some they have abandoned. But what hasn’t changed is traditional singing of Rogotin church male singers, who sing so well that they are frequently called to sing on funerals in a wider region around Rogotin. The songs they sing and the way they do it is a tradition which is still alive and very dear and important to the villagers of Rogotin.

Author/s Ljiljana Mandić

Ljiljana Mandić was born in Bjelovar in 1962. She graduated from the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 1985. In 1986 she began her career at the Croatian Television – then Television Zagreb – as a director\’s assistant in the Education and Documentary Desk. Since 1992, she has worked as a director on the travelogue series \”Lijepa naša\” (Our Beautiful Homeland). During the past twenty years she has made about 120 films, some of which have been greatly acclaimed and won a number of awards. Since 1995, she has also made a number of independent projects and successfully presented them at numerous international festivals.

Research Vido Bagur, Aleksej Pavlovsky, Ljiljana Mandić
Photography Damir Bednjanec
Sound Damir Tepeš
Editing Damir Đurčević