Beldocs Festival from 7 to 14 May in Belgrade

The forthcoming Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival opens on 7 May at 7.30 pm at the Sava Centre’s Great Hall with the premiers of two Serbian documentary films: ‘In Praise of Nothing’, by Boris Mitic and ‘Kaktus Bata’s Last Adventure’ by Djordje Markovic.

Without any doubts, one of the most exclusive guests of 11th Beldocs will be Ruth Beckermann, an Austrian film director, whose film ‘Waldheims Walzer’ has received an award for the best feature-length documentary film at recently finished Berlinale. She will be staying in Belgrade in May, where her highly specific film, selected for the Beldocs Festival’s Biographical Documentary Programme, will be presented to the Serbian audience.

There is a great interest among the media for the scheduled arrival of Abel Ferrara, a cult American feature-film director, who will be a guest of 11th Beldocs Festival with his documentary film ‘Piazza Vitorrio’. Abel Ferarra – who is always expected to create a provocation – has actually made a significant number of documentary films.

The film ‘Piazza Vitorrio’ is a chronicle of the liveliest town square in Rome, where all multi-cultural varieties of the city are felt in full. The square is a constantly animated multi-ethnical centre, a residence to Romans, Asians, Africans and Indians.  Walking down the Square, Ferarra enters into conversation with square residents on their origins, reasons for coming, a desire to stay. And on survival in the cruel modern world. Precisely on account of its very colourful structure, Piazza Vitorrio has become a favourite spot for many artists, including Ferarra himself, who, for that very reason, with a documentary film structure, succeeds in reaching its core and enters the interior of its unique dimension. For the Square is made of people and their stories. Through his approach, Ferrara opens the door for them to confide in him. The diversity of the content has not been represented to that extent in any of the recent films, as it is the case in Piazza Vitorrio. In that respect, Ferrara reveals why precisely Piazza Vitorrio has become such an inspiring muse for many great filmmakers, including Pasolini to whom he dedicated his last film, featuring William Dafoe, who also makes a significant appearance in Piazza Vitorrio.

BelDocs Festival:

During the last decade, Beldocs Festival has become the most loved spring documentary film festival, which gathers the best works of contemporary documentary filmmaking. The most important contemporary documentary films have had its premiere precisely at Beldocs. In this year, again, a documentary film market will be organised, for the second time supported by the European Union through the Programme: Creative Europe, sub-programme Media. 

This year, as well, Beldocs is continuing to develop and educate its audience through a quality and premiere programme, offering, in addition to domestic, an international selection, as well as numerous accompanying programmes of events, among which Feel Good Movies and Biographical Documentaries proved to be the most loved. This year, in addition to Sava Centre, Beldocs will be held at Dom Sindikata, Kinoteka’s film theatres at Kosovska and Uzun Mirkova Street, the cinema Fontana and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

This year, a #europeanfilmchallenge prize competition has been launched, in which the documentary film audience compete for valuable prizes – a  full paid trip to an A category film festival. After Berlinale, the next round is a trip to Cannes and the second round started on 12 February. The rules are the following: a competitor should see 10 European documentary films on any of legal platforms (VoD, SVoD, cinema, festival, television, etc.), name the film and the platform, publish a photo as a proof and hash tag #europeanfilmchallenge. After certain period of time, the competition organiser will select a winner, who will receive this attractive prize.

This year’s 11 Beldocs Festival takes place from 7 to 14 May.