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Afterimage, May-June, 2005 by Radmila Djurica

FEST 2005: Belgrade's 33rd International Film Festival

Belgrade, Serbia

February 25-March 6, 2005

French screen legend Catherine Deneuve opened Belgrade's 33rd International Film Festival--FEST 2005--on February 25, 2005 in the Serbian capital. Following her appearance was the screening of Andre Techine's film Les Temps Qui Changent (The Changing Times, 2004), starring Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu.

The annual film festival, this year featuring 72 films (with 27 of the films' directors in attendance), honors and represents visual ideas on an international level. Despite the disjunction between sightseeing and participation in film, it informs and educates the audience on a broad range of social and political issues across the globe. For instance, the political film Awakening From the Dead (2005), directed by Milos Radivojevic, addresses the impact of ideology on a society where political myths have had the upper hand over reality. Serbian political reality often results in a conspiracy of silence, built up by violence of all kinds, which ultimately leads to apathy. In light of the country's neo-colonial cultural policy, contemporary Serbian films deal with subjects related to post-communist agony, in a time when Serbian society must be prepared to face immediate past events and reveal half-truths or simply ignored truths. Radivojevic's testimonial film, which signifies the beginning of a dark, satirically laced wave in Serbian cinema, was chosen by the Yugoslav Section of the International Association of Film Critics for the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film for FEST 2005. Likewise, South by South-East (2004), a psychological thriller directed by Milutin Petrovic, was the recipient of the Nebojsa Djukelic Award, chosen by UFNIK, Belgrade's Film Critic and Journalist Unit. The film, picturing social foreplay of false morality, corruption and general paranoia, attempts to produce a Balkan response to Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959).

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After 10 days with 277 screenings and over 60,000 tickets sold, FEST 2005 was brought to a close with Theo Angelopoulos' film Trilogy 1: Field of Tears (2004), which addresses the joint destiny and cultural backgrounds of the Serbian people.

RADMILA DJURICA, a native of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, is an English translator and freelance reporter and art critic.