The Projection Booth

Special Report: Girl in the Night (2026)

Sep 24, 2026·23m

Covered

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Show notes

Rok (Urban Kuntarič), a lonely gas station clerk, steals a bicycle and ends up sidekick to its owner, The Girl (Lara Wolf), a blank-eyed, scarred vigilante who may or may not be a superhero. Luka Marčetić's Girl in the Night (2026) just took Best Picture in Fantastic Fest's Main Competition, and Mike talks with Marčetić and Wolf about the Slovenian deadpan charmer.

Marčetić traces the film from a one-line logline and a scrapped romantic comedy to a tone shaped by Napoleon Dynamite, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Riley Stearns. The pair recall 20 winter nights of whispered filming in Ljubljana, the one-inch difference between "puppy eyes" and menace, and blinks erased in post. Plus: a ferret fight staged with a puppet, inspired by Bela Lugosi's rubber-octopus wrestling in Ed Wood, and a story rewritten in the edit.

Follow the film on Instagram at @dekle_noci.