Beldocs: It doesn't depend on anyone

It is very possible that Beldocs, the International Documentary Film Festival, will be the only festival this year that will not be postponed. So far, this has already happened with the March Festival, Fest, the "Seven Magnificent" festival, and we are waiting to see what will happen with Bitef, Bemus and similar toponyms of the local culture.

Beldocs will be held from May 21 to 27 at several locations in Belgrade. Igor Stanojević, the coach of Beldocs, assumes that they managed to realize this year's edition on time because they do not depend on anyone.

Photo: Promo

"We don't depend on anyone, the City Assembly is not our founder, we are our own. The cinema halls where we will show films are reserved a year in advance, and we are not waiting for anyone in any sense," he told the "Vremena" portal. He notes that, of course, they also "sometimes apply to the Ministry and Secretariat for Culture, but they always receive less money than they expect. We will never be their priority."

This year, Beldocs will feature 80 films.

Igor Stanojević says that it will be "a shade more toned down than in previous years, more concise. We will have ten fewer films and will last one day shorter. Following the dynamics of visits during the festival, it seemed to us that the conciseness of the program would give more attention to the films, and that in that case the accompanying programs would be more pronounced".

The themes of this year's films are education, social changes, science and technology, art, music, and Igor Stanojević singles out animals.

"Films dealt with animals in different ways: they observed and recorded their lives, or from the point of view of the organizations that take care of them. I think that this topic is also extremely topical in Serbia, especially from the legal aspect, and unfortunately often also because of examples of inadequate treatment of animals."

More than 150 international guests will come to Belgrade this May because of Beldocs. It will be his eighteenth edition.