The 15th Beldocs Festival closed with the award ceremony at the Belgrade Youth Center. The Grand Prix of the festival, the award for the best film within the Serbian competition program went to the film Without by Luka Papić. As part of the international competition program for the best film, the works of Italian directors Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini (Late August) won the jury prize, while Indian director Payal Kapadia received a special award in this category for the film A Night of Complete Ignorance.
Kamarata Foskarini.
The award for the best camera was given to Srdjan Keča for his film Museum of the Revolution, while the award for the best editing went to Jelena Maksimović for the film Without. The jury awarded the prize for the best short film of the festival in the category of 14 films to the film Mom, Why Here? By Tanzanian director Neema Ngelime. The jury decided to award a special recognition in this category to the film Aralkum by Ukrainian director Mila Zhluktenko and German director Daniel Asadi Faezi. The best film within the Teen selection was Raise the Ladder by Icelandic director Gudjon Ragnarsson. Special recognition in the Teen Film Competition was awarded to the film Mission by director Tania Anderson.
The Grand Prix of the Serbian competition program includes a diploma and a cash prize of 2,000 euros, prizes for the best photography and editing are diplomas and a cash prize of 500 euros. The awards were presented by Aleksandra Mitrić Štifanić on behalf of Film Center Serbia, the patron of these awards. The director of DOX TV, Maja Jelišić Cooper, the sponsor of the award, presented the award in the amount of 2,000 euros for the best film in the International Competition Program.
The Beldocs Industry, which was part of the 15th Beldocs IDFF, ended on May 14 with an awards ceremony for the Beldocs in Progress section. During the 3 days, 16 documentary film projects were shown at different stages of development and production, as well as 6 projects made by Serbian production companies, which were shown to a group of international industry members – media and broadcasters, festival representatives, sales and distribution companies. , as well as representatives of the film market in general. All projects were evaluated by an international jury of German Films director Simona Bauman, associates of the Sarajevo Film Festival Rade Šešić and Đani Hasečić from Al Jazeera.
The main prize, a cash prize in the amount of 2000, sponsored by Al Jazeera Balkans, was awarded to the project We Are Pretty Loud by Joey David Jovanović from Serbia. The jury wrote in a statement that this project charmingly and charismatically represents serious socio-political topics. The jury also praised the strong characters and their accessibility, a well-constructed narrative that promises the film great international potential, a film that is of great importance and that presents important social problems.
Several other awards were given, supported by the partner Beldocs IDFF, and the award for networking of the International Festival in Thessaloniki went to the project by Elizabeth Smith (Ukraine). The award of the Eastern Silver Caravan of the Documentary Film Institute (Festival Strategy) went to Flotation project Eluned Zoe Aiano and Aleksandra Tatić (Serbia). The European Encouragement Documentary Association Award went to Hanis Bagašov’s I Don’t Want project (Northern Macedonia) and Pitch the Doc, How to Talk to Lydia? by Rusudan Gaprindashvili (Georgia, Germany).
Beldocs hosted over 170 guests from abroad: directors, producers, as well as representatives of world companies selling films, festivals, television, VoD platforms, national film centers, professional organizations.
The festival was supported by: European Union through the Creative Europe MEDIA program, Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, Secretariat for Culture of Belgrade, Film Center of Serbia, Film Center of Greece, Film Center of Montenegro, Danish Film Institute, Embassies of Australia, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland , Goethe Institute, Austrian Cultural Forum, Italian Cultural Center, French Institute, UN Women, OSCE Mission to Serbia, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Sasha Marchetta Foundation, Al Jazeera Balkans, DOX TV, ORION Telecom.