Motovun Film Festival

By Rada Djurica

The Motovun Film Festival, a meeting place for students and artists in Croatia, is a five-day-long movie exhibition of 80 short and feature films. The setting for the Festival is absolutely fab, with the festival's additional programs and workshops taking place on the streets and squares of a beautiful, fortified medieval town — Motovun.

This film festival is perfect for viewing small and independent productions, with the festival program consisting of around 70 titles from all over the world, from documentaries to feature films, creating an open-minded atmosphere. The festival program includes the most successful independent films, with the intention to represent the global film industry. The year 2007 offered a special program on Japanese horror films.

The director of the festival is Olinka Vistica, and the art director is Rajko Grlic. Guests of the festival were: Istvan Szabo, David Mackenzie, Jamie Bell and Stephen Daldry.

Representing a former region of Yugoslavia which is now part of Serbia, Vojvodina, was the guest of honor, Serbian actress Mira Banjac.

The main awards were selected by the official jury of the festival: Misha Radivojevic (Serbian film director), Kujim Casku and Ognjen Svilicic (Croatian film director).

The festival gave away four awards: PROPELER MOTOVUN for the best film, went to Israeli director Dror Shaul's Sweet Mud. The FIPRESCI Award for The Best Film produced in the region Albania till Austria went to the film by the Scotish director David Mackenzie's Hallam Foe. A separate jury gave the award for best regional film to Bulgarian director Andrey Paounov's The Mosquito Problem and Other Stories. Mahamet-Saleh Haroun won the Amnesty International Award with Dry Season, and Croatian youth voted for the most popular feature, Sing Love Songs by Croatian director Goran Kulenovic.