FEST-o-POLIS
Backstage at the Belgrade International
Film Festival
By
Rada Djurica
Everybody has heard about the Cannes Film Festival, which represents
the center of culture and of film media in Europe. There are several international
film festivals in Europe and the world, but only one is held in Eastern
Europe, and that's FEST, the International Film Festival in Belgrade,
Serbia. During its 31-year history, this festival has hosted truly big
names in the film industry.
The former Yugoslavia is the perfect place to host an international film
festival. For they, above many others, understand it is not easy to promote
world cultural cooperation. As a country that only recently ended a civil
war, they understand it is not easy to increase world consciousness. And
yet, there is nothing like show business to draw people together. And
over the years, the celebrities have come, celebrities such as Roman Polanski,
Victoria de Sike, Kirk Douglas, Milos Forman, Gina Lollobrigida, Jack
Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Irma Flis, David Puttnam, Jim Jarmusch, Johnny
Depp, Beatrice Dalle, Andrew Birkin, A. Goth, Hugo Weaving, and Catherine
Deneuve.
Every year FEST has the same international conception within its film
selection. The film festival includes mainstream, commercial, award nominated,
big budget, art, international, and awarded films. FEST 2003 had 95 films
from 40 countries. There were 12 films from the Film Festival in Berlin,
adding special weight because the Berlin Film Festival selects mainly
awarded films.
According to program director Miroljub Vuckovic, "The films of the
31st edition of FEST will be presented to the audience in several programs:
current, present, expected and unavoidable films of the current film season
and discoveries of FEST 2003 are grouped together within the program lighthouse.
The program's spiritual territories consist of Us Today, which presents
new American films, and Far and Away, dedicated to film production of
Southeastern Europe. Exceptional films produced in Russia, which will
be screened at FEST 2003, enable us to enter a special spiritual space.
Significant full-length documentary films comprise facts and puzzles;
sensual erotica and sexuality can be found in Devil in the Flash, while
two festival weekends in the grand theatre of Center Sava will be dedicated
to a children's program."
This year FEST hosted director Ken Russell as an honored guest. He spent
the last days of the festival with his wife, receiving the Yugoslavian
film contribution award, Zlatni Pechat. FEST 2003 paid special tribute
to Ken Russell. Why? Mr. Russell earned this award in the late '60s and
early '70s, with many achievements, such as "Women in Love"
from 1972 with Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, Oliver Reed. There was the
"Savage Messiah" (Dorothy Tutin, Scott Anthony, Helen Mirren,
Lindsay Kemp) from 1972 and of course "Tommy" from 1974.
FEST also celebrated the visit of world famous French singer, actor and the honored guest Charles Aznavour. Other guests included Robert Fisher, Hanns Zischler, Anna Moungalis, Do Thi Hai Yen and Quang Hai, Michael Corgan and many other important guests from former and present Yugoslavia.
FEST 2003 opened with the film "The Quiet American" by Philip
Noyce, and closed with the new Serbian film by Ljubisha Samarchic, "Ledina."
The Jury of Film Critics and Journalists also announced the best film
of FEST 2003, the German film"Goodbye Lenin," directed by Wolfgang
Becker.