The documentary “One more time with feeling”, directed by Andrew Dominik and featuring celebrated Australian musician Nick Cave, will be screened for the festival’s opening ceremony at the Sava Centre. In total, the festival will offer 88 documentaries from 40 countries, screened as part of 11 programme sections.
As stated proudly by festival director Mladen Vušurović, documentary lovers will have an opportunity to see a film about Ingrid Bergman, one of the greatest European actresses of all time (“Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words”), the feature documentary “Mr Gaga”, about acclaimed choreographer Ohad Naharin, as well as many other internationally awarded documentaries.
Beldocs will present three international premieres – “Lust For Sight” by Manuel von Strlüer, “Tomorrowland” by Iranian director Sarvnaz Alambeigi, and the biographical documentary “Mikhail Tal. From Far Off”, about this famous chess player, directed by Stanislav Tokalov.
FOCUS ON GLOBAL ISSUES
From its very inception, Beldocs has been focused on contemporary tendencies in documentary filmmaking. Our interlocutor reminds us that documentaries about important global issues have had a special place at the festival.
This year will see two films about ISIS screened and the audience will have a chance to enjoy the special selection “Creation vs. Destruction”, dedicated to relations between war and creativity. The documentary “The Siege”, by Remy Ourdan and Patrick Chauvel, will mark Europe Day.
Another film potentially worth watching is “Ghost Hunting”, which won the best documentary prize at the Berlinale. Controversial author Bernard-Henri Levy, director of “Battle for Mossoul“ and “Peshmerga”, will also be coming to Belgrade.
In addition to the always inspiring international competition, biographical documentaries will also attract the audience – last year saw tickets for this selection sold out instantly. Some will choose musical-dance documentaries, of educational programmes, or attend retrospectives of Goran Marković and Alione van der Horst.
The interesting “Feelgood movie” section will feature ecological films, those with Eros and Tanatos as their subject, and so-called slow docs. And we also shouldn’t forget to mention nine feature documentaries that will be premiered within the national competition and Croatian documentaries – Millenial reality from a female perspective.
SEARCH FOR THE AUDIENCE
As in previous years, these films will be screened outside Belgrade. Another good tradition that will continue this year is for some filmmakers to join debates or hold workshops. Among official guests are Steve Bjorkman, who directed the documentary about Ingrid Bergman, and director Stanislav Tokalov.
“In the coming ten years, Beldocs will position itself as a premier festival. We used to primarily research important festivals in order to find the best films, but recently we have found very interesting documentaries in countries with a low production capacity, such as Ireland, Norway or Lithuania,” says Vušurović.
An important part of the Beldocs mission represents the search for the audience. As the director of Beldocs implies, the local audience is yet to fall in love with documentaries. We hope that the international community in Serbia will support this idea, as some embassies and foreign cultural centres have previously supported this festival.
Beldocs Market
Beldocs Market, co-financed by the Creative Europe programme, will take place during the festival – from 8th to 12th May. It is supported by the MEDIA Programme for the first time. Thus Beldocs will become the only documentary film festival in the region to have 12 sales agents from Europe and the world presenting documentaries, while producers will have the opportunity to establish direct communication with those agents.
Moreover, the market will also be attended by 15 managers in the acquisition of television programming in the Western Balkans, twenty representatives of festivals, producers and journalists. The market will also include the staging of lectures, panel discussions, one-on-one meetings and organised informal meetings. Beldocs Market will provide an opportunity for local artists to showcase their work in progress projects to representatives from Europe and television editors from the region.