A bored, kleptomaniac night clerk helps a vigilante find her missing bike… that he stole. Luka Marčetić’s hilarious, violent, and off-kilter Girl in the Night is part of Fantastic Fest 2026.
Congratulations to Girl in the Night. The Luka Marčetić-written and directed film, or Dekle noci in its native language, was awarded Best Picture in the main competition of Fantastic Fest 2026, which is currently featuring the Slovenian story. It’s a well-deserved prize, as Girl in the Night is a very strong film; a total thrill to experience.
That joy comes in the pitch-perfect dryness of the continual humor as disaffected guy Rok fills his boredom with an unexpected connection and adventure with a local odd young woman. Working in a far too quiet, far too boring convenience store overnight, he fills the time stealing candy bars while his coworker sleeps. Outside of work, he commits other petty thefts and is just overall bored and listless. He has a general 20-something malaise of “what the hell should I be doing with my time?” One where someone knows they must break out of the cycle, but dammit, that takes effort.
Rok finds that something with The Girl in the Night (no name given) as she comes into his store battered and bruised. She’s intense and gives off a Doing Something vibe he misses. She says she’s okay despite the bleeding head wound, as she is a self-proclaimed superhero vigilante who helps people overnight. He latches on and helps as she does what she feels she needs to do, which may cross boundaries to fit her own code. He’s entranced, enlivened, and engaged. So he makes a big decision: what better way to keep her around is to steal her bike. Thus, the two misfits become entwined as she tracks down what she expects are the right paths. There’s strong humor in our dramatic irony as we see what she’s capable of while heading down the wrong path in a nighttime Slovenian city, while the culprit is right there. It all comes to a wonderful head with a great ending.
It’s a fun, thrilling journey as we slide into their worlds. Hers is one of casual violence; his is one of odd boredom (love the time with his roommates). The dialogue is presented so matter-of-factly, purposely flattened, dry, and direct that it turns into its own stylization. This sort of low-key nature might not work for many, coming off as unnatural, but for me it landed. The whole has a wonderfully unnatural feel, almost parable-like. As Rok and the otherwise unnamed title character, Urban Kuntarič and Lara Wolf, respectively, the pair are perfect, finding the emotions and character under the purposeful stillness; they play off one another.
Cinematographer Lev Predan Kowarski shoots the night beautifully. Imbued with tensely cinematic darkness, exudes an otherworldly aura of both safety and danger. It’s peaceful, but what lurks in the next shadow? Despite being nearly completely in the darkness, it’s all visible when it needs to be, with a noirish contrast in the neon-lit night. The shots are also set and presented with a strange Wes Anderson vibe. As an Anderson fanboy, I dig it.
But I dug it all. Girl in the Night is a funny, thrilling, Eastern European journey of what happens overnight as we sleep and the people of the evening crawl from their hiding places. Luka Marčetić crafts a fantastic, surprising film, and Fantastic Fest chose the Best Picture well.
Girl in the Night plays as part of Fantastic Fest 2026, running in Austin, Texas, from September 17th through 24th. More info here.