31st FEST Beograd 2003

Back in 1996, a retrospective tribute scheduled by Belgrade Television to pay honor to popular Serb director Goran Paskaljevic was canceled for the month of December. Both Paskaljevic and his Belgrade producer, Filip David, belonged to the opposition groups who are demonstrating daily before Belgrade Television in protest against government manipulation of recent elections and for freedom of the press and media. Seven years later, after the fall of Slobodan Milosovic, Goran Paskaljevic was approached by the new government under Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic to head a restructured 31st Belgrade International Film Festival ­ aka FEST ­ and return it to the glory of previous years. FEST Beograd 2003 (28 February ­ 9 March 2003) doubled its attendance from 40,000 in 2002 to 80,000 this year ­ far beyond expectations!

        The sine qua non of a »festival of festivals« is international contacts and attractive programming. Running on the heels of the Berlinale, FEST had the pick of films that made headlines just a week before: Chicago, The Hours, Adaptation, Solaris, 25th Hour, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Bye, Lenin!, to name just the cream of the crop. In addition, programmer Miroljub Vuckovic slotted 120 films in eye-catching categories: Currents, Lighthouse, Spiritual Territories: Us Today and Far Away, Facts and Puzzles, Devil in the Flesh, Tribute to Ken Russell, and Children’s Programme.

        The key factor in the success of the festival, however, was its guest list. Goran Paskaljevic, who divides his time between Paris and Belgrade, invited his close friend Charles Aznavour to attend Belgrade as Honorary President ­ he came with a print of Atom Egoyan’s Ararat under his arm. And FEST helped considerably to mend fences by inviting films and directors from the new nations carved out of ex-Yugoslavia: Dalibor Matanic’s Nice Dead Girls (Croatia), Damjan Kozole’s Spare Parts (Slovenia), Hanna Slak’s Blind Spot (Slovenia), and Dino Mustafic’s Remake (Bosnia). Remake, a heart-rending story of the siege of Sarajevo, was such a hit with the Belgrade public that it was bought by a Serb distributor for immediate release.

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