This year's edition of FEST is marked by legendary Bekim Fehmiu, who left us exactly ten years ago, and in line with the homage to this great actor is the festival's slogan - Emotions Catchers. The 48th FEST will be opened by Srdan Golubovic’s film Father, which will premiere as part of the Panorama programme at the upcoming Berlinale. The closing ceremony will be held at the Kombank Hall, and on that occasion, the famous Hollywood actor, John Malkovich, will present music and stage performance called ‘Music Critic’. Mira Banjac, Costa-Gavras and John Malkovich are this year's laureates of the Belgrade Victor Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film Art.
Artistic Director of FEST, Jugoslav Pantelic, presents 96 premiere films in the following programmes:
In Competition: MAIN COMPETITION PROGRAMME and FEST FOCUS
Out of Competition: Out of Competition Main Programme, FEST 48, Gala, Out of Competition FEST Focus, Special Screenings, FEST Classic.
For the Belgrade Victor and other awards, twenty films from Serbia, France, USA, Iran, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Australia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Czech Republic, Northern Macedonia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Denmark and Columbia are competing in the Main Programme this year. ‘What certainly does not dominate these films is optimism, but even if it can be felt, it is the product of unfounded hopes and belief that everything will always be good in the end ... The heroes in the films of the 48th FEST Main Programme are people most often strange and, to a lesser extent, of miraculous destinies whose future only somewhat depends on themselves. Accustomed to the constraints imposed on them by a wide variety of social and family, i.e. traditional boundaries, film heroes are predominantly turned to the evolutionary life changes for the sake of achieving the ultimate goal, which is usually not achieved,‘ said the Artistic Director of FEST.
The best films in the Main Programme are decided by a five-member international jury consisting of Slovenian actor Sebastian Cavazza, who was awarded Best Actor for his role in ‘Ederlezi Rising’ in 2018, Natasa Ninkovic, Serbian actress, Dana Budisavljevic, Croatian director, author of ‘The Diary of Diana Budisavljevic’, Clemens Schick, a German actor who became famous for his roles in German and Hollywood films (Casino Royale, Point Break) and Nikola Ljuca, who was awarded Best Direction for the film ‘Humidity’ at FEST in 2016. The jury will decide the winners of the awards in the categories: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Direction, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Debut.
A new programme is being introduced this year - FEST Focus, whose premiere screenings will be held at the Cultural Centre Hall. FEST Focus arose from the festival's need to further draw attention to the films that, with their bold expression and choice of theme, deserve it. Therefore, it is not surprising that the best film of the programme will be decided by those whose work is described in the same way, Momir Milosevic and Dusan Zoric, young directors whose films you discovered at FEST, as well as journalist and TV editor Damir Sehanovic. A three-member jury will decide on the winner of the Nebojsa Djukelic Award for Best Film in the Region.
The novelty is that the audience will have the opportunity to vote for the best European film from the Main Competition Programme, and the winner will be sponsored by the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia, which supported FEST last year.
In addition to the official awards, there will also be the unofficial ones - Politika's Milutin Colic Award, FIPRESCI Jury Award and FEDEORA Jury Award.
The Gala Festival Programme offers the latest films by Marielle Heller (2016 Belgrade Victor Winner for Best Film), Roman Polanski, Atom Egoyan, Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch, Woody Allen, Terrence Malick, Andrei Konchalovsky, Olivier Assayas, Alejandro Amenabar and many others. There are also big Hollywood hits nominated for Oscars and similar awards, such as Jojo Rabbit, The Lighthouse, Richard Jewel, Corpus Christi, Late night, Harriet. In addition to the aforementioned programmes, this year there will be films in the Out of Competition Main Programme (Costa-Gavras, Goran Paskaljevic, Dardenne Brothers, Cristi Puiu), Special Screenings (Luca Guadagnino, Fatih Akin, Misa Terzic), FEST 48 (Marjane Satrapi, Mario Martone, Takashi Miike) and FEST Classic (Lina Wertmuller, Wim Wenders, Michelangelo Antonioni). The FEST Classic programme this year is also dedicated to the work of Neda Arneric (winner of the Belgrade Victor Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Film Arts in 2018), and to Bekim Fehmiu. This year, a film from the FEST Classic programme will be presented to the audience in the largest festival hall, the Sava Centre, and this is the final version of Francis Ford Kopola's famous Apocalypse Now.
Guests of the Festival will include Costa-Gavras, who will present his new film Adults in the Room with lead actor Christos Loulis, German actor August Diehl, spotted in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, director Atom Egoyan, twice nominated for an Oscar and six times in the competition for Palme d'Or (Grand Prix of the Jury for The Sweet Hereafter).
Tickets for the Festival were released on January 25th at the box office of all the halls. Tickets for screenings at the Sava Centre, Kombank Hall and Belgrade Youth Centre, can be purchased at the box office of these halls, as well as online through TICKET VISION - www.tickets.rs, as well as at all Ticket Vision outlets.
