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.

Cybercinematography - Semantics of retro-dynamics of one city

By Natasa Tepavcevic

Beograd, July 17, (Serbia Today) - Cybercinematography is a public event within Belef Festival held on 14th July in center of Belgrade: Plateau near hotel „Moskva“, Academy plateau, Knez Mihailova Streeet. It is an international project, conducted by an association of multimedia artists AUROPOLIS and in cooperation with the Association for interdisciplinary and intercultural research.
Audience could watch two half hour movies, picked up from TV archive, about Belgrade’s past. The first movie has focused on people and the second on urban transformations of the city in last half of the century.
Association for interdisciplinary and intercultural research was established in 2002 in Zagreb, aiming to research and act upon cultural interstices. Since then it has been putting emphasis on producing catalysts of urban, social, artistic and epistemological re-definitions in the widest sense. The project "Cybercinematography" was initiated in 2006 as one of the numerous projects by this organization. Until now it has been seen in Zagreb in 2007, Dubrovnik, Dresden, Prague and Buenos Aires in 2008, and in 2009 it will be seen in Rijeka and Belgrade.
Cyberkino is dealing with integration of media archeology and its presentation through new media. The project communicates with the general public through direct impression – by projecting documentary archive material that becomes innovative illuminative category of semantic redefinition of the urban space. Idea of projecting own simulacra on architectural elements of the buildings builds up very specific interaction between reality and imaginary directly enriching eclectic urban environment. Project Cybercinematography aims to virtualize the picture of public space, creating a platform where the possible and real, real and simulated is synthesized in the eye of the beholder.
Contemplation of the urban space is the aim of this project, as well the art of travel in time. A viewer is invited to construct his own system/history/picture of the city’s past through the movie, “to face the present” and to imagine, assume the future.
Cybercinematografy is live site-specific interactive installation where the viewer becomes an author of the location's individualized history. The goal is resistance to the hegemony and domination of falsified and perverted master narratives of history in one hand and in another also resistance to the total commercialization of semantic codes which dominate cities.
History is not given. History is unwritten. What is the aim of the project like Cybercinematography? The aim is to raise the awareness of city as the human being and to face us with a fact that we are writing/re-writing history, here and now.
Viewers, consumers of Cybercinematography should be aware of the constant transformation of the city through time, but also should be aware how (models/system) collective and individual memory is constructed by “images in the wide sense”.
In the moving images of Cybercinematography, Belgrade is becoming live material, waved out of energetic threads of sound and image. In associatively set form, these moving images act as collective psychological – reflective category in which we recognize almost every family system that exists in these territories.
Apart from projections in public areas, Cybercinematography, through live web streaming and telemetric performance technologies, gravitates towards connecting a series of cities in virtual space World Wide Web – creating hyper-locations which are integrating trans-local phenomena. Unlike globalization, which from the smallest settlement creates a podium for turning big capital, trans-localization creates urban mis-en scenes which over and over question the burdens of its past and which, aware of its own resources, doesn't accept to be the margin of great imposed narratives.
However, this project promotes also the idea of free use of archive material, as well the idea of implementing different scenarios in dull and commercialized media-scopes of cities around the world. Web streaming technology should support intercultural communication, while bridging over geo (political) distances.
The day after displaying the Cybercinematography, on 15th of July, Belgrade’s streets Kralja Petra, Kosančićev venac, and Karađorđeva Street will host one more exhibition entitled Korzo. This project will also present an archive of cities memories, but this time through the photography medium. It is an attempt for mapping the architectural anatomy (facades of the buildings) but also shown photographs marked important moments and figures from history and even Belgrade’s family’s albums from numerous collections.

Exhibition "White" in Gallery "Haos"

By: Natasa Tepavcevic

Belgrade, July 16, (Serbia Today)-Exhibition of eight young artists, entitled "White" is opened on July 14th in the gallery "Haos" in Belgrade. The president of the Stari Grad City Hall, Mirjana Božidarević had an honor to open this exhibition.

Subtitle of the exhibition is “Progressive Hope”, because this event/exhibition is organized by, and thanks to the best students from University of Art in Belgrade. Gallery “Haos” as many times before, continues to support young artists, recognizing striking expression of the new generation. Concept of the exhibition is conducted by: Biljana Tomic, Dobrila Denegri and NKA / Independent Cultural Association.

Drawings, paintings and sculptures are installed in the inner space of the gallery and outside, in front of it. The Artists are the youngest generation of art students: Lidija Delić, Smilja Ignjatović, Nina Ivanović, Isidora Krstić, Ana Pavlović, Nina Simonović, Bojana Stamenković i Marija Šević.
Exhibition “White” includes various types of artistic activities such as: performances, city-specific installation, music performances as well as informal free talks with Artists. Conversation between artists and visitors is going on in front of a gallery in “Dositejeva” street, where is the green area-the big grass field installation. This environment-installation has the goal to stop the passengers, to warn the citizens about new age vision of urban city, and to raise the environmental awareness of people. The authors of installation called it ecology action, which includes: ecology regulation of “Dositejeva” street-space at the top of the street between the “National Theater”, “National Museum” and Gallery “Theater” and Gallery “Haos”.

The main idea of the project/culture action is the cleaning of the upper part of the “Dositejeva” street which has been blocked by parked cars. Environmental installation and the whole project, including all events, aim to the public media and institutional campaigning for cleaning “Dositejeva” street to convert the upper part of that street into the first ecological-cultural space in the city. With this insight, the mentioned street in the centre of Belgrade will become a tourist target and attraction. Belgrade will be perceived as an expressive city, clean and with ecological awareness.

The organizations also included in this project are: NKA / MKM, Haos Gallery, Stari Grad City Hall, Urban Greenery, Art students and Faculty of Fine Arts, with the support of the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Tourism and of the City, and the Secretariat for Environmental Protection.

Steps forward in recycling

Steps forward in recycling
By Ljiljana Samardzic
Sombor, July 17, (Serbia Today)- West Backa County has started new waste management project, which is initiated by partners from Serbia and Hungary. Realization of this project will take 12 months and it started in April 2009.
Raising public awareness about waste management in West Backa County and Danube region aims at improving info systems and raising public ecology awareness. This project refers to changing human habits of this area when it comes to process of sorting out waste. Due to that fact, the first phase is oriented on inquiry, which should show current state of public opinion about recycling process.
Andrija Penzes, the general manager of Public Communal Company “Cistoca” in Sombor, who is one of the project leaders, said that target groups are mainly children and youngsters since they are immensely affecting adults, especially parents.
Penzes said for Serbia Today, “We consider that students at Sombor’s University are one of the most important links of the chain. Their future role demands additional ecological education and knowledge how to pass on their knowledge about recycling”.
In previous years, citizens had little or no knowledge at all about recycling and its importance. Local authorities, but Serbian Government as well, paid little attention to this important question. In comparison to the last period, ecological sphere is vastly improved. “After years of inactivity, this small step represents a big success if we consider the fact that this sphere was undeveloped. Changes cannot be taken revolutionary, but gradually - through education, television programs, trucks with advertisings, bins for different materials and “green spots”, said Penzes.
One of project indicators will be “The week of environmental protection” where “values before and after education will be compared”. The event will be organized on territory of both partners - Sombor County (Apatin, Odzaci, Sombor, and Kula), Bac County from Serbia and Baja County from Hungary.
Despite this ambitious project, citizens still need a lot more to get used to recycling. “Privatization in Serbia wasn’t enforced in the right way, so we would have financial problems even without this economic crisis. Government should provide adequate technical conditions, locations for waste by standards of European Union and much more. All those things cost a lot of money.”
Other, more developed parts of the world are investing much more in recycling. For instance in Switzerland, recycling is not just an environmental, but also a financial issue - recycling itself is free, but throwing away garbage costs. For each garbage bag you have to buy a sticker. If not, the garbage is left in front of your house. Germans have at least five types of recycling bins - each one in different color for every material. Obviously, there are many ways of implementing new strategies for waste management, but all of them require serious material investments for countries like Serbia. Taking any steps represents successes and progress. Actualization of this project gives hope that citizens of Serbia will at least try to cope with environmental issues.

Public Information Law, censorship or correction?

By Miodrag Stosic

Belgrade, July 28, ( Serbia Today) - Karl Popper, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, says that openness of media is one of the most important indicators of an open society. These days, Serbia has to decide about a new public information law, which would introduce some inevitable changes to a world of media.
However, some concerns about this have been raised, inspired by this topic's contemporary history. Does a new law lead towards better, or just more controlled media? Are those who proposed this law sincere in their intentions, or is it just a private war that current government fights against public opinion?
This law has been proposed by Serbian Government, but parties that make a ruling coalition have different views on it. Ministers from Socialist Party of Serbia refused to support this law, considering it an instrument to reduce independence of media, and announced that their representatives in parliament will abstain from voting. Some of the socialists' coalition partners have expressed even stronger oposition. Leader of United Serbia party, Dragan Marković Palma, said: ''Limitations to freedom of media or investigative journalism are unacceptable'', and added that ''politicians and journalists do not have the same position, because politicians have immunities which they may invoke at any time''.
Serbian Progressive Party is also discontented by proposed law. Its legal councelor, Nikola Selaković, pointed at the press conference that this law's goal is a loss of freedom of speech and media. He also stated that several daily newspaper would cease their activities after adoption of this law.
It is interesting that those political options which were criticized for loss of freedom of speech by an oposition during '90s, now opose a new law. Back in 1998, SPS and SRS (then a ruling coalition) adopted Public information law (known as ''Vučić's law''). It led to a termination of several weekly newspaper, for they were not able to pay high fines. Today, situation is completely different. Forces that came to power back in the year 2000 now adopt similar law, while forces of an ex regime opose it.
While being guest in ''Utisak nedelje (Impression of the Week)'' show, Božidar Đelić said that Serbia needs this kind of law, to cleanse an atmosphere in media. He refused allegations that it is about a private war between one of the ministers and magazine ''Kurir''. Minister of culture, Nebojša Bradić, says that the problems with this law could be overcome by appropriate amandments. These amandments are about reducing fines which were originally planned to be 20 times bigger.Serbian Assembly will decide about Public information law on a closed session. Many point to that fact as an irony in a whole attempt to bring a higher level of a culture of information to Serbia. There is no doubt that Serbia needs better media space. Nevertheless, there is a question raised by Bertrand Russell, once upon a time: who cuts barber's hair? Who is competent to appoint the one who would assess and evaluate freedom of speech?

National Minorities, Breath of Diversity, Breath of Europe

By Rina Mihajlovic

NOVI SAD, July 16 (Serbia Today) – Good laws and kind words are not enough to protect rights of national minorities, enable them to preserve their culture and identity and exclude violence against them. To raise awareness on the diversity of European societies, the Council of Europe has launched a photo exhibition, taking the example of Serbia’s multi-ethnic Vojvodina province.
Entitled “National Minorities, Breath of Diversity, Breath of Europe”, it aims at raising awareness on the diversity of European societies. Envisioned as an exhibition in the open space, it is placed at the Liberty Square ( Trg Slobode) in the heart of the city of Novi Sad.
“We didn’t want to present this exhibition from political point of view but to show Vojvodina as a multinational region, to show minorities as people, for who they are. It is important for them to preserve their language, tradition and culture. They should not forget where they came from,” Stephanie Marcel of Council of Europe told Serbia Today in an interview.
The exhibition, born out of the desire to speak about the people referred to under the abstract name of “national minorities”, was first shown in Strasbourg, and from Novi Sad it will tour the entire Europe.
She explains that Vojvodina has been taken as an example as a small region and very diverse society with many minorities and an interesting history. “From Hungarian to Ottoman Empire it has always been multinational.”
“It is important to preserve someone’s culture and identity. Many of those minorities are born here, Serbia is their home. They don’t see their future elsewhere, they see it here. Even the ones who came from Kosovo, have come here looking for better life and they don’t want to go back. Of course they couldn’t go back either.”
Photographs of Roma, Hungarians, Croatians, Slovaks, Macedonians, and people of other nationalities, exhibited at the city’s central square, have attempted to capture each personality, a look in the eyes that is telling a story, regardless of where a person lives.
Marcel says those people do not feel like minorities. “The only problem is the problem that others have with so called ‘minorities’. Vojvodina is a peaceful region but there are still some problems. Not at large scale but it does happen. Not enough has been done by the justice system and police to stop the violence against minorities.”
“More attention should be given to it. This problem should not be overlooked and overshadowed.”
Roma are especially vulnerable, since many children do not attend school or drop out very early and parents do not understand that the education is crucial to break the poverty cycle. Although there are special classes at school teaching them their native language, those classes are optional and not integrated into the regular curriculum.
“There is an office for helping Roma here in this region. The office gives them money for self employment. We went to visit one girl who opened her hairdressing salon in the center of Novi Sad. She seized the opportunity to get a loan and open her own business. There are people who want to work; not all of them are without ambitions.”
The government should work more with parents and the community and to explain to them the importance of education, but also push them to register their newborns, which would give them the access to health care and social benefits. Many Roma in Serbia do not have any identification documents.
It is necessary that minorities articulate their needs and let the government know what those needs are. “Our role here is also to assimilate these two sides – worries and needs of minorities and what government offers. For example you can’t open a school for just two people, so that is why we step in, to integrate what government offers and what minorities ask for.”
“Talking is not enough; we want to see changes happen,” Marcel says. “My role is to analyze it from the legal side and I can say that Serbia is just to the minorities. There are good laws in Serbia but implementing is a bit problematic. Vojvodina is a quite advanced region but there are discrepancies in what Belgrade says and what is done locally.”
Respect of human rights is one of the conditions for the European Union membership.
“We would like to see government going from words to action and to be determined to do something not visa -vie Council of Europe but visa- vie local needs and minorities; to make improvements here on the spot.”

Prevention of Torture in Serbia's Prisons and Mental institutions

By Ljilja Cvekic

BELGRADE, July 17 (Serbia Today) – Serbia’s Ombudsman has formed a monitoring team for prevention of torture, cruel and inhumane treatment of people in prisons, police stations and mental institutions, Deputy Public Advocate Milos Jankovic told Serbia Today on Wednesday.
“Abolishment of torture and any other kind of inhumane and degrading treatment has become not only an ethical principle but also an imperative in order to protect each individual, as well as the state and democracy,” he said.
People locked in prisons or juvenile delinquents correction facilities, psychiatric hospitals or homes for children with mental disabilities are marginalized and often forgotten by the society, presenting the easiest targets of ill-treatment. Their essential human rights, including the right to humane living conditions and proper health care, are often violated.
The Ombudsman’s decision of June 29 on establishment of preventive mechanism for monitoring those institutions says teams of legal experts, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and other relevant experts will “systematically collect, check and process data relating to protection of persons deprived of liberty”. Their reports will be made public and will represent the basis for recommendation of the Ombudsman to the relevant authorities and the Parliament.
Although Serbia is not a country where torture is institutionalized, there are numerous examples of inhumane treatment and an evident lack of control and sanctions by the state. By definition, torture means causing a physical or psychological pain by the state or with an explicit or silent agreement by the state, when the authorities are aware of its existence but fail to react.
“A general opinion that particularly cruel types of torture are not being used here, like those we see in movies or on pictures of certain prison systems, such as Guantanamo, does not mean that there are no individual cases of torture,” Jankovic says.
The Council of Europe anti-torture committee said in its report on Serbia published this year that the major complaints on physical ill-treatment were coming from people detained by the police and called upon Serbia to ensure presence of a lawyer, medical doctor and an interpreter if needed.
The report also points to the problem of overcrowded psychiatric institutions where inter-patient violence leads to frequent resort to mechanical restrains, when sometimes patients remain tied up for prolonged periods, and urged Serbia to reorganize the system of care for people with mental disabilities.
Both prisons and mental institutions are overcrowded and they are lacking trained personnel. In some cases there is only one physician on 400 people with mental disabilities or one doctor in a prison with 1,300 inmates. Serbia has currently about 10,500 prisoners, held in prisons with a total capacity to accommodate 7,000.
“Despite many prejudices, persons deprived of freedom have inalienable human rights that have to be respected. Living conditions which are violating their human rights cannot be justified with lack of funds or their eventual guilt for an act committed,” said Jankovic, adding that more human living conditions have to be ensured in institutions, first of all regarding the accommodation, treatment and health care.
The expert teams will now start visiting these institutions without prior notice, without restrictions in viewing all rooms, will have an access to all files and have confidential conversation with prisoners or patients and staff without any supervision.
Serbia has ratified both the United Nations and Council of Europe anti-torture conventions, obliging itself to prevent and sanction torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment.
“It is not only an issue of fulfilling the international obligations and of Serbia’s international credibility, but a necessity for preserving a dignity of all citizens and a democratic essence of our country.”