Although it is not yet known who will be the selector and artistic director of the Fest, that is, who will create and conceive the program of the Fest, it is known when this International Film Festival will be held. The board of this festival decided last night that instead of the end of February, when it was held the previous 52 years, this year's Fest will be from September 12 to 23.
The program is ready.
Jugoslav Pantelić who was artistic director and selector for ten years, his mandate expired in December last year. According to the Board's decision, that function will now be separated, and the new artistic director will be chosen by the City Assembly.
The board has not yet appointed a selector, but it did appoint an "associate selector" a few months ago. This is journalist Ivan Aranđelović, editor of the Film Program of the Belgrade Cultural Center. He created the program of the 53rd Fest, which was adopted by the Board, as well as the list of relevant guests, and negotiations with the rights holders for showing films began.
It is expected that everything will be ready by the announced new date.
Apart from the selectors and the artistic director, until recently the Fest did not even have a Board.
A few months ago, Board member Dean of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Miloš Pavlović, resigned, and Ksenia Zečević's term expired. The new members are the director of the Sava Center, Kristina Milinčić, and the long-term producer of the Fest, Darja Bajić. The President of the Board has been the same for the second year, Nataša Mihailović Vacić, Secretary for Culture of the City of Belgrade.
Reasons
As they explained in the statement after last night's meeting, in previous years there were reasons and official proposals for moving the dates of the Fest, in order to align the festival with the dates of other international film festivals, ensure a better selection of films, as well as more efficient programming and financial planning throughout the year.
This reminder that the September date was proposed in previous years also refers to the idea of Ivan Karl, director of the Film Center of Serbia, from 2022, which he reminded the public of half a day before yesterday's Board meeting, through the Tanjug agency.
Karl told Tanjug that he wanted it to happen after the jubilee 50th Fest in 2022 and that he put the proposal to the festival board for a vote twice, in May and August of that year.
He explained that the September date would reduce the costs of the revue part of the program.
Also, "since the Cannes Festival ended four months earlier, and the Venice Festival three weeks earlier, the films in September would be incomparably more current, more accessible, especially since they can immediately start cinema distribution on the wave and after the Fest." The same applies to regional festivals, from which one part of the title for the competition program comes," said Karl.
Fest all year round
Karl added that the Fest should not abandon the current February-March schedule, which would correspond to the "Fest Classic" review, where remastered - digitized versions of films from earlier festivals will be shown. In this way, he said, the Fest would be present all year round in the cultural life of Belgrade, Serbia and the region: through a retrospective exhibition event in February and centrally in October.
So, starting this year, in September, apart from Bitef, Belgrade will also host another international festival - Fest.
