This metaphor is the universal definition of a film festival in which the emotions that carry moving images are received and transmitted during screenings. Such emotions with the passage of time stimulate memories and nostalgia, so in Serbia, FEST is always talked about more in the past tense. There are almost no newspapers this time of year that do not publish black-and-white photographs of former guests from the archives, a feuilleton of memories, anecdotes and urban legends that no one questions any longer. I personally wrote about the history of our favorite festival. Enough. I will not talk about the past anymore.
FEST 2020 will, hopefully, become a mold for future work, because by its concept, significance and goals, it sublimates old experiences and new ideas. We were thinking in the Bord what we should do after five years of introducing a competition concept. We were not for radical cuts, but to edit and shape the existing concept, to make it more attractive to filmmakers who send their films to Belgrade, to a jury that evaluates them, to the audience watching them, to the media who follow them, and, finally, to us who prepare all this. That is why we have merged our competition lines so far into one unique MAIN COMPETITION PROGRAMME, in which twenty films from all over the world, including new films from Serbia, compete for the Belgrade Victors in the categories BEST FILM, DIRECTOR, ACTOR, ACTRESS, SCRIPT, DEBUT. Our wish is for this selection to become a benchmark for the region where FEST is the oldest and most popular film festival. Meeting place of friends like Mira Banjac, Atom Egoyan, Costa-Gavras, Julian Sands, Cristi Puiu, Milcho Manchevski, John Malkovich ...
Artistic Director Jugoslav Pantelic has selected almost 100 premier films whose addresses are Main Competition Programme, Out of Competition Main Programme, Gala, FEST Focus, Fest Classic, Fest 48, Special Screenings.
Mestrovic's Belgrade Victor has just returned to Kalemegdan, and FEST's winners will gather in front of him at the end of the Festival.
Ivan Karl
President of the FEST Board
