Belgrade International film festival

The Last Frame for 35th FEST

The winner of the first competition in history of the festival - "Europe out of Europe" is movie - "To get to Heaven first you need to die!" Award to this Tajikistan movie by Djamshed Usmonov was given by the jury - "for its original characters and seductive performances, and a story which takes us on a journey that's never predictable, but always convincing"


By JASNA JANKOVIĆ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


Audience could see about 80 movies on this year's FEST - 35th Belgrade International film festival, which lasted from February 23 to March 4, under the slogan "Are you Frame for the FEST". Among others - "Volver" by Pedro Almodovar, "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Flags of our fathers" by Clint Eastwood, "Last king of Scotland", "Apocalypto" by Mel Gibson. These movies were showed as a part of festival program called "Horizons". Other six parts were "Fantasy" - dedicated to movies from Asia which represent world in a fantastic way, "German journey" - dedicated to modern German movie, "Facts and Puzzles" - regular part of festival showing modern documentary, "Misses" - part of program named after movie of Andrea Štaka and it represented to the audience movies of the most significant female directors, and the part called "Lighthouse" dedicated to the successful young directors. For the first time FEST had a competition part - "Europe out of Europe" for the movies from European countries not integrated enough in EU and from non-European countries with strong cultural bond with Europe.

Bob Raphaelson, director from New York and guest of honour of the festival (known for the movie "Three easy pieces" from 1970), officially opened FEST on the premiere of Serbian movie "The Trap", directed by Srdan Golubović. On this occasion as the concomitant part of festival three Raphaelson's movie were showed and he was handed with "Golden Seal" - the highest award of Yugoslavian Cinematheque. Beside him, guests of the festival were one from the three protagonist of movie "Trip to Guantanamo" about notorious American prison which won "Silver Bear" for best director last year, then Romanian actress Madline Gidesku, the representative of Berlin film festival - Kristin Hoffman, actor of the movie "The Lives of Others" - Hans-Uwe Bauer and many others.

Part of the FEST was also B2B or Belgrade Industry Meetings. During this pitching session numerous movies were presented in three sections: East-European, Euro-Asian and Balkan countries. Award of 7,000 € was given to the best project of each section.

The winner of the first competition in history of the festival - "Europe out of Europe" is movie - "To get to Heaven first you need to die!" Award to this Tajikistan movie by Djamshed Usmonov was given by the jury - "for its original characters and seductive performances, and a story which takes us on a journey that's never predictable, but always convincing". The statue, work of sculptor Kalines Ilijesku, was received by co-producer of the movie Sitora Lieva from Russia. Other movies competing for this award were "Free Floating" of Boris Hlebnikov, "Hamlet" of Aleksandar Rajković, "Fate" of Zeki Demirkubuz", "Paradise Birds" of Talgat Asirankulov, "The Baloon" of Ethan Fox, "Two" of Puriša Đorđevic and "Armin" of Ognjen Sviličić. Also, the awards of journalists' juries were given. The Union of film journalists and critics gave the award "Nebojša Dukelić" to the selection of Germans movies on the festival, while, jury Fipresci awarded movie "The Lives of Others" which won the Oscar for best foreign movie.

The interest of the audience was really high, as the manager of FEST, Miloš Parmenidić explained: 97,000 tickets were sold and about 120,000 of people have seen the festival. Also, audience could vote for the best movie in their opinion - "Babel" got the first position, followed by "Goya's ghosts" by Milosh Forman, "The Queen" by Stephen Frears and "The Trap" by Srdan Golubović.