Palic Film Festival

By:Jelena Jovanovic

Belgrade, July 16, (Serbia Today)- The 16th European Palić Film Festival will be held from July 18- 24, on various locations near lake Palić and in Subotica. A British film director Ken Russell will open the Festival. Serbian Minister of culture, Nebojša Bradić will be present at the opening ceremony.

Ken Russell is a special guest of the Festival as this year’s winner of the prestigious Aleksandar Lifka Award, together with remarkable Serbian actor Predrag Miki Manojlović. The European Film Festival Palić gives this award for outstanding contribution to the European cinema.

The International Film Festival Palić was founded in 1992 by the Municipality of Subotica. From the earliest small and unpretentious film screenings in Palić, through the persistent attempts to create a serious regional film festival in the hard times of isolation, the Festival has grown into an important European film festival. In the year 2003, with its 10th edition, Palić Festival became a member of the European Council of Film Festivals.

Today, the European Film Festival Palić is one of the most important film festivals in the region that presents only European films.

This year, on the Summer Stage, Yachting Club and Eco Centre (Palic), in Jadran Cinema and Open University (Subotica) the audience will be able to watch films in the official program which has competitive character.

There are 8 other programs – Parallels and Encounters , Young European Filmmakers, Homage program, New Finnish film, New Hungarian film, Serbian film in transition- 1989/2009 , Eco Documentaries and Underground spirit.

The Festival will be opened with a film For a moment, Freedom (Austria/France/Turkey 2008) directed by Arash Riahi and will be closed by a film awarded this year in Cannes - The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke. In seven days of the Festival, 14 films will be presented in the main program. Among them it will be four Serbian films- The Devil`s Town, directed by Vladimir Paskaljević, Ordinary people, directed by Vladimir Perišić, Someone is still waiting, by Marko Novaković and Here and There, by Darko Lungulov.

In a program “Parallels and Encounters”, 8 films from Eastern Europe will be screened. Festival will also present young and perspective European film authors, less known films and authors from Hungary and Finland, as well as brave and unusual film stories in a program “Underground spirit”. A retrospective view on the most significant Serbian films made from 1991. will be shown in program “Serbian film in transition”.

“Homage program” is dedicated to the this year’s winners of the award Aleksandar Lifka, and the accompanying Festival program will include lectures, round tables, interesting music programs, parties...

The European Film Festival will award the following prizes: Golden Tower for the best film and Palić Tower for the best directing, as well as the Jury's Special Prize. The best film from the “Parallels and Encounters” Program will be chosen by the International Critics' Jury.

The Jury of the 16th European Film Festival Palić consists of Szabolcs Tolnai, a director from Subotica, Samuel Finzi, an actor from Germany, Gloria Scola, a journalist from Madrid, Peter Zawrel, director of the Vienna Film Fund, and Alberto Barbera, president of the Jury. Barbera is a well known Italian film critic and director of the National Museum of Cinema in Turin.

Radoslav Zelenović, director of the Festival, told that, although financial means for the Festival had been reduced for 40% , they had managed to keep its form. He also said that he was very glad that a Festival had such impressive guest list. This year festival guests will be authors from 12 films from the official program, and many others.

Except for the Main Competition, entry is, as usual, free to all other sections of the European Palić Film Festival. Films from the main competition program are screened at the Summer Stage in Palić, and tickets can be purchased at the box office of the Stage. A ticket for one festival evening (two films from the main program) costs 200 dinars.