The Cannes Film Festival is in full swing, and the Film Center Serbia delegation is present at this extremely important film event, just like every year.
Before leaving for Cannes, the director of Film Center Serbia, Gordan Matić, pointed out the following: “The Cannes Film Festival is an unavoidable point in the work of the Film Center on international promotion of Serbian films, minority co-productions, professional collaborations and partnerships that the FCS has with other foreign national cinematography centers. In Cannes, we are always present to support our films and minority co-productions included in the festival program, as well as projects from our country that are being developed within one of the development funds and programs of the festival. ”
From the premiere in Cannes, we single out the new film by Marija Apčevska, the Macedonian-Serbian-Hungarian co-production North Pole, which competes for the Golden Palm within the official selection of short films. We emphasize that this film was made with the participation of Serbian authors and Film Center Serbia, which has supported it at the Competition for co-financing minority co-productions.
In addition, as part of the Market of the Cannes Film Festival (Marché du Film), a project of the Serbian feature animated film “Deleted” directed by Zoran Krstić will be presented. The film is presented in Cannes under the auspices of the “ACE Animation Special” program. In November 2020, this project was supported at the Competition of the Film Center of Serbia – in the category of co-financing the production of domestic feature animated films.
Zdravko Velimirović’s film The Fourteenth Day (1960) was also selected for the “Cannes Classic” program, with a planned screening of a digitally restored copy made in cooperation with the Yugoslav Cinematheque and the Montenegrin Cinematheque. Also, it should be pointed out that Emir Kusturica’s famous film Black Cat, White Cat (1998), which was awarded many times in Venice, was shown last night in Cannes in the open air, in the revival part of the program.
Film Center Serbia participated in talks at the BPX European Congress, where the experiences of European film funds during the pandemic were exchanged and where plans and the near future of film festivals and networking strategies were discussed. BPX (Best Practice Exchange) is, we remind you, a European platform for the exchange of practice and experience and its implementation in different territories. In addition to Europe, Canada and Israel are members of this platform, although Canadians did not participate this year.
At the meeting with the representatives of FCS and CNC (French Film Center), it was agreed to further develop closer bilateral cooperation in organizing a previously launched competition for co-production of projects from our country and their presentation to French producers in Paris in late October. Also, the French side expressed a desire to help in the field of regulation and relations with platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime in our country. Their best experts will transfer their knowledge and experience to Serbian legal teams in the coming period.
Closer cooperation between the regional film centers of Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Slovenia and Croatia has been agreed, as part of a joint platform for the creation of minority co-productions that will enable easier application to projects and producers in these countries. This will mean that the same documentation will be required in each competition and that joint consulting teams for transparency in the justification of funds will be formed.
This year, as in previous years, Film Center Serbia has its own stand in Cannes , where distributors, managers, producers and film professionals from around the world can get acquainted with the latest Serbian cinematic works, films that are in the post-production phase at the time of the festival, as well as with the reliefs and incentives that Serbia continues to offer to foreign productions.