FOCUS:

»Life is a short form, too« ran the motto of the 52nd National / 2nd International Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival (20-24 April 2005), one of three major film events under the aegis of the Belgrade Festival Organization and Production ­ the other two being »Belgrade FESTLaquo; for international feature films in January and &raquoBelgrade Authors« for independent directors with a signature in November. Although only in its second year as an international event, Belgrade’s Shorts and Documentaries profile made it especially attractive for local talent, while the hefty award purses proffered to 63 participating entries was particularly alluring for visiting filmmakers. Ask visiting journalists and festival directors (two of whom served on the international jury), and they will confirm that Belgrade already ranks as a leader among the surge of international short film events now on the festival calendar. It appears that the »short form« has never been so popular, due in great part to the hand-held DV camera for documentary portraits, the computer for swift special-effect animation, and the European film commissions supporting personal story-telling by talent directors emerging from film schools.

Of key importance to Belgrade’s rapid growth was the festival’s hard-working staff headed by Milos Paramentic (festival director) and composed of Vera Vlajic (art director) and Janko Baljak (board president) ­ who scouted the international scene for the best available in four sections: documentary, short features, animation, and experimental films. Another team composed of local filmmakers and journalists ­ Danica Acimovic, Andrijana Stojkovic, and Feliks Pasic ­ selected entries from Serbia and Montenegro for the national program.

This year, to keep things as fair as possible for both local and visiting filmmakers, the decision was made to have the international jury vote the awards in both the national and international programs. The trick of the five-member jury was to decide on the Grand Prize for Best Film of the Festival ­ awarded to Hye-Jung Um for Home Sweet Home (Korea). In her short feature cut from the popular genre of the ghost story, she gives it an ironic twist when a little girl, reported dead on TV in a school fire, returns home unexpectedly to confront her family. Flown in from Seoul for the closing ceremonies, Hye-Jung Um received the prize personally from the hands of Iranian woman documentary filmmaker Soudabeh Babagap, who Noah’s Ark had been awarded the Grand Prize at last year’s Belgrade festival.

On the national front Goran Radovanovic’s Pileci isbori (Chicken Elections) (Serbia and Montenegro) was awarded the Gold Medal for Best Film. A witty, tongue-in-cheek commentary on current social weaknesses in Serbian society, Chicken Elections is reminiscent of the Golden Age of Yugoslav Documentaries, when during the turbulent 1970s the Socialism in the Balkans was oft defined as a tug-of-war between Marxism and the Marx Brothers. As critic, screenwriter, documentarist, and member of the European Film Academy, whose films are currently on tour under the auspices of the Goethe-Institut, Goran Radovanovic is adapt at using humor to make his sociopolitical point. The focus in Chicken Elections is on a give-and-take between a disconcerted policeman and his ailing elderly aunt who try to maintain contact with a mobile telephone.

Two Belgrade Gold Medals were awarded in the International Program. Igor Ivanov’s short feature Bubacki (Bugs) (Macedonia) sketches the life of a scarred adult through his frightful childhood experiences with a drunken father. Similarly, Jay Rosenblatt’s documentary Phantom Limb (USA) explores emotional and physical loss in a personal cinematic essay. The jury gave a Special Mention to Michelangelo Antonioni’s Sguardo de Michelangelo (The Gaze of Michelangelo) (Italy), sketching in muted black-and-white tones a pilgrimage the great Italian director has made over decades to the Church of San Pietro for a visit to Michelangelo’s sculptured »Moses« masterpiece at the tomb of Julius II. Praise was also showered on a pair of highly inventive and skillfully narrated animation entries: Juan Solanas’s L'homme sans tête (The Man Without a Head) (France) and Georges Schwizgebel’s L'homme sans ombre (The Man Without a Shadow) (Canada/Switzerland)

Four Belgrade Gold Medals were awarded to entries in each section of the National Program. Petar Jovanovic’s documentary Zemlja Vajaje (The Land of Vajaja) is an eye-filling portrait of a fading rural culture in a Vojvodina village inhabited by aged Hungarian sheep farmers. Vladimir Djukelic’s experimental film Slobodan pad (Free Falling) is a fascinating power-play sketch of a young man reviewing the frivolities of his life during a free-fall parachute jump. Jelena Besir’s animation film Ogledalo (Mirror) impresses as a gracefully rendered poetic fantasy drawn from the director’s personal feelings about life, love, and freedom. And Marko Kostic’s short fiction film Princ od Papira (Paper Prince) amuses as a modern-day fairy tale about a little girl who foils a thief in her home by drawing the culprit into her world of magic and pretence. Last, but not least, the Belgrade Faculty of Dramatic Arts was awarded the Golden Medal for Best Production of a Group of Films.

Belgrade 2005 was far more than just the competition. The festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award went to Miomir-Miki Stamenkovic, veteran Serbian director of 11 features and 34 documentaries. The late Zdravko Velimirovic (1930-2005) was remembered with a memorial screening of his Spain of Our Youth (Yugoslavia, 1967) documentary. Stefan Arsenijevic, whose hilarious short Fabulous Vera (Serbia & Montenegro) is the Belgrade segment of the acclaimed omnibus film Lost and Found sponsored by the Berlinale Talent Campus, was feted in his home town with a special screening. Other sidebars focused on Visions of Europe, Kosovo, New York Animation, »Red Light Focus« Films, European Film Academy Shorts, New Iranian Documentary Films, Clermont-Ferrand Festival Program, and a Tribute to French documentarist and photographer Raymond Depardon. A popular hit, too, was the Friedrich von Schiller Reading by Dorothea Moritz with Darije Sebic on piano programmed by visionary Goethe-Institut director Volker Marwitz.

Ron Holloway