by Vladan Petkovic
[Screen International Belgrade correspondent, here writing exclusively for Jigsaw Lounge]

   Every summer, the Balkans join the world in the sense of the sheer number of all kinds of festivals. Take Exit No. 7 (Novi Sad, Serbia, July 12-15), now one of the largest music festivals in Europe with about 50,000 visitors every day and featuring more than 150 performers, including Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg and Wu Tang Clan, among many others; Istrarock Festival (Labin, Croatia, July 20-21) featuring cult bands such as Majke, Let 3 and Zabranjeno Pusenje (Sarajevo's equivalent to Emir Kusturica's No Smoking Orchestra).
   But the focus of these (semi-regular) reports will be film festivals: Film Festival of Serbia (Novi Sad, July 3-8); Sopot Festival of Film Production (Sopot, Serbia, Jul 8-13), Palic Festival of European Film (Palic, Serbia, Jul 16-22), Pula Film Festival (Pula, Istria, Croatia, Jul 12-21), Motovun Film Festival (Motovun, Istria, Croatia, Jul 23-27), and finally the biggest event of them all: Sarajevo Film Festival (Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Aug 17-25).



Report #1: NOVI SAD
Film Festival of Serbia (Novi Sad, July 3-8)
   A little historical background: in the former Yugoslavia, the national competition film festival was held in the Croatian coastal town of Pula. After the collapse of (what I would call) the best country in the world, Serbia & Montenegro had a festival in Herceg Novi which fulfilled a similar role. When Montenegro became independent in June 2006, Serbia needed a new national festival and Film Center Serbia arranged it - in conjunction with the organisation State of Exit - in Novi Sad, the capital (pop. 250,000) of Serbia's northern section, Vojvodina.
   State of Exit is extremely experienced in organization of music festivals, being responsible for Exit, but it turns out that the ever-so-pretty hostesses that know everything about music, virtually have no idea about (e.g.) Dragan Bjelogrlic, the famous Serbian actor/producer and president of the board of the Film Festival of Serbia (best known internationally for his role in Srdjan Dragojevic's Bosnia-war masterpiece Pretty Village Pretty Flame). Besides, they don't know a thing about locations, times and durations of screenings. What is more important is that the city had virtually no idea that there was a film festival going on. The festival officially opened on Tuesday, Jul 3, and when I came to Novi Sad on Friday, a waitress in a café asked me, "Is there some festival here that you came to?"
   Novi Sad is an inert city, where everything goes slowly and no one is in a hurry. That makes people from Belgrade, used to speed and noise, nervous after a couple of days. At the final press conference, Bjelogrlic said he was satisfied that "the festival has been recognized both by film-makers and audiences," although most of the screenings were half-empty and the forced carnival atmosphere with alternative art and music programmes never really made one feel that he/she is attending a festival.  In other words, Film Festival of Serbia was just an intro to Exit for the people of Novi Sad.
   Notwithstanding the organizational mistakes, the first Film Festival of Serbia showcased the busiest year in Serbian production for the last decade, with 16 films in competition for 14 categories of awards and two out of competition titles- Emir Kusturica's Promise Me This and Goran Paskaljevic's The Optimists. The biggest winner was Nikola Stojanovic's Belle Époque [my rating 6/10], shot in Sarajevo in 1990 in the wake of the war in former Yugoslavia which took best film, best actress, music, make-up and art direction. During the war, the materials had been kept at co-producer Bakir Tanovic's home in Sarajevo and it took 17 years to complete the film.
   Although Fatih Akin had been announced to lead the jury, he dropped out at the last moment without clear explanation from the organizers. He was replaced by the Icelandic producer-actor-director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, best known for Niceland (2004) and Cold Fever (1995), as well as for the role in Lars Von Trier's The Boss Of Them All. Other members of the jury were Serbian director Boro Draskovic, Italian cinematographer Carlo Varini, Serbian actress Dusica Zegarac and Croatian film critic Nenad Polimac.
   Most of the film-makers and particularly actors were surprised and angry that the jury awarded the best actor prize to Kenedi Hasani, the non-professional star of Zelimir Zilnik's Kenedi Is Getting Married [6/10] - third in Zelnik's series about a young Roma man who has been trying to make it against all odds, after Kenedi Goes Back Home (2003) and Where Has Kenedi Been For Two Years? (2005).
   One of the highlights of the festival was the excellent competition comprising productions funded by Eurimages - the first of its kind. Eurimages often organizes sidebars of their films at various festivals, but this was the first time such a selection had been the focus of a competition. French-Portuguese Trance [7/10] by Teresa Villaverde was the winner among a 17-strong field that also included PALFI Gyorgy's Taxidermia [7/10]; Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy; Raoul Ruiz's Klimt; Christian Ditter's French For Beginners and David Gleeson's The Front Line.
   In this section, at least, connoisseurs of European film had more than enough on their plate to enjoy and the general impression is that the jury - German actor-director Otto Reiter, Serbian director Gorcin Stojanovic and Bosnian director (now head of Bosnian National Television) Jasmin Durakovic - got it right.
   Hopefully the second edition of the festival will be better organized and not at the same time as Karlovy Vary. The concept does show potential and when the various "teething problems" are gotten over, maybe Serbia will finally have a decent national festival. With Film Center Serbia in disarray and its president Djordje Milicevic in the process of resigning, it will of course take time to gather a more able team. But a year should be long enough...

coming shortly : a review of CHANGE ME