Ralph Fiennes (center)

Belgrade International Film Festival

By Rada Djurica

One of the most significant actors of today, Ralph Fiennes, was present at the Belgrade premier of The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry, which opened the 37th FEST (Belgrade International Film Festival) on February 20. With about 100,000 tickets sold, the festival entertained and influenced Belgrade's cinema lovers with leading films, plus a competitive program, Europe out of Europe, and a producer's business roundtable program, B2B. Side programs included a theatre play, exhibitions, an homage film program and a thematic round table, "Female Film Directors from Southeastern Europe." The festival closed with the debut of Here and There, directed by a Serbian film director from New York, Darko Lungulov, and starring well-known '80s American pop star Cyndi Lauper and her husband David Thornton, a film that recently triumphed at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Among the special programs was a presentation of the theater play Pain, written by Marguerite Duras, directed by Patrice Chéreau and Thierry Thieue Niang, and starring the great Dominique Blanc, an honored guest of the festival. Dominique Blanc is one of the most acknowledged French actresses of today and a winner of the César Award, the national film award of France. At the festival, she presented her newest film achievements: The Other On (L'Autre) and One Day You Will Understand (Plus tard, tu comprendras), as well as appearing in Pain.

The festival also presented an exhibition of paintings by Jerzy Skolimowski as part of a dialogue between FEST and other Belgrade art festivals. Skolimowski is a fine art film director from Poland. The exhibition of his oil paintings represented about 15 years of his most significant large format painting, put together by Skolimovski, who was a guest of the festival. In addition, he presented his new film, Four Nights with Anna (also screened at the Cannes Film Festival ), which opened the program called Directors' Fortnight at FEST09. Skolimovski has exhibited his work in Europe, the United States, and on Biennial in Venice, Italy, France and Great Britain.

About his paintings, film director and painter Julian Schnabel said, "Jerzy Skolimowski has always been a painter, but like many painters living in the 20th century, he has turned to filmmaking as a form for his expressions. The first time I saw his paintings was a few years ago. They looked like abstract work. But under closer [examination], I realized his work is never abstract; it always has to do with the figure and the landscape. His materials are self-conscious and anthropomorphic, always referring back to human scale. Jerzy has always painted. He never stopped. It is his solace between making films. It is his solace beyond filmmaking."

Festival Awards

• Politika's "Erytocit" Award for Best Film in the program Europe out of Europe went to to a Russian film, The Gift to Stalin (Podarok Stalinu), directed by Rustem Abdrashev "for a big professional dedication in a film art, for powerful treating of historical theme and humanism."

• The Jury of Serbia FIPRESCI Award for Best Film was bestowed on two Italian films, Gomorrah by Matea Garonea and II Divo by Paola Sorentina for "a radical way of moving borders of a political film genre in proving that a good film is not just an art but also [about] being brave."

• The jury of film critics and journalists, UFNIK, gave the Nebojša Dukelik Award, for a film that distinguishes with style, aesthetics and message, to a Serbian film, Life and Death of Porno Gang, "for a brave, critical and almost porno-stripping of a modern society raw reality, not only in a local but in a global context. With more layered and supernatural poetic and with elements of black humor and shocking bizarrely based on brutal consequences of life in post transition society."

• Also the festival rewarded the best pitch and gave away 5000 euros for a project in development, presented by a producers' and writers' collaboration with Western cinematography, presenters of film funds and world film distributors. The award went to authors from Macedonia, Gruzia and Kazakhstan.

Review: The Transition

Interview: Dominique Blanc