Level 52
Level 52

Project Socrat

How Level 52 Translated a EU Heritage Project into Compelling Multimedia Storytelling

Level 52

Year

May 2025 – July 2026

Client

Istria County – Administrative Department for Culture and Heritage (under the Interreg Italy–Croatia programme)

Services

Film production, Brand communication

Category

Documentary

The story

SOCRAT (Socializing Craft & Contemporary Art for Sustainable Tourism) is an Interreg Italy–Croatia project running from March 2024 to August 2026. Backed by a €2,344,660 budget, it bridges traditional craftsmanship with contemporary art to drive sustainable tourism across the Adriatic. In Istria (Pula, Labin, Rovinj, and Vodnjan), the project launched creative Living Labs focusing on ceramics, textile design, and performing arts. Here, local artisans and modern artists co-created unique cultural products that reinterpreted regional heritage. The project culminated in July 2026 with the cross-border exhibition "Shared Grounds". Backed by a €2.34 million investment, SOCRAT proved that heritage is not a static museum piece, but a dynamic asset for building authentic, community-driven tourism.

Executive Summary

When the cross-border EU project SOCRAT needed to document its most abstract and complex segment — the Performing Arts & Artistic Interventions Living Lab in Pula — they challenged Level 52 to create a series of storytelling films.

This specific lab was one of three distinct Living Labs filmed and documented by Level 52 throughout the project. For this particular segment, titled "Ho-Ruk! Hop-Jan!", Level 52's primary mission was to go behind the scenes, capturing the intensive preparation, research, and collaborative work of the creative team as they built the project from the ground up. The goal was to visually map the process of how archival worker songs from the 1960s are radically reinterpreted into a final, research-driven artistic and audiovisual performance exploring the history and sonicity of the labor collective. The ultimate result of the team's work was a 50-minute ode to heavy physical labor, the shock-worker (udarnik) spirit, and former youth work actions.

This performance is rooted in a live presentation that blends experimental music, field recordings, and poetry. The concept and performance were co-created by Alen and Nenad Sinkauz (music), Andrea Matošević (text and research), Miodrag Gladović (sound and electronics), and Davor Sanvincenti (video), alongside guest mentor and Italian artist Michele Sambin.

Level 52
Level 52
Level 52

The Challenge

Artistic interventions in public spaces are inherently chaotic, experimental, and difficult to capture linearly. Level 52 faced a double challenge:

  1. Translating the Abstract: Explaining the complex creative methods of international artists so that the general public and EU auditors can easily understand the project’s value.

  2. Sound as a Visual Element: The laboratory focused heavily on field recordings and industrial sounds transformed into electronic music. The video production had to make the auditory experience visually compelling.

 

The Solution & Creative Approach

Level 52 structured the film concept using a 5-stage narrative arc that mimics the birth of an artistic intervention:

  • The Blueprint (Context): Establishing Pula’s industrial and urban architecture.

  • The Metamorphosis (Process): Capturing intimate, high-end B-roll of workshops in the Rojc Center. Filming the democratic friction of collective improvisation — showing hands on audio mixers, intense glances, and artists testing acoustics in empty spaces.

  • The Ritual (The Performance): Filming the culmination at the Istrian National Theatre (INK) focusing on breaking the "fourth wall" between the performance, the audience, and Pula’s urban identity.

 

Level 52

Sound Design

Level 52 integrated the actual experimental soundscapes created during the labs directly into the film’s sound design, creating a seamless loop where the soundtrack is the subject of the movie.

 

The Deliverables

Level 52 executed a comprehensive content package formatted for both international evaluation and digital marketing:

  • 3x Short-Form Documentaries (5+ minutes): Each focusing on a specific lab layer (Ceramics, Textiles, and Performing Arts) with subtitles in Croatian, English, and Italian.

  • 3x Social Media Reels (1+ minute): Fast-paced, high-impact edits tailored for digital communication channels to maximize project visibility.

  • 1x Feature Aftermovie (15+ minutes): A comprehensive film merging all three creative labs into a singular, cohesive narrative of the SOCRAT project in Istria.

Level 52

Key Results & Impact

Demystified Art: Turned a complex academic/artistic concept into an engaging story that proves culture is an economic resource, not a cost.

Flawless EU Compliance: Delivered institutional storytelling that fully respects the strict Interreg visibility guidelines, combining artistic freedom with rigorous project requirements.

Strategic Assets for Tourism: The resulting videos now serve Istria County as permanent cultural-tourism assets, showcasing Pula and the region as a vibrant, year-round hub for creative industries.