The nineteenth edition of the “Free Zone” Film Festival will be held from October 31st to November 5th, 2023 in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš and Kragujevac, and among the selected titles is the award-winning Serbian documentary Bottlemen.
Director Nemanja Vojinović shot the film over the course of seven years in Vinča, one of the largest landfills in Europe. Collectors of plastic bottles work there, centimeters above the archaeological layers of one of the most important prehistoric civilization sites in Europe.
In this “documentary western”, as the director described it, we follow the last days of that community before their jobs go the way of the dodo. The film was awarded the “Heart of Sarajevo” for best documentary film, and its production was supported by Film Center Serbia.
Sixty-three films from thirty-eight countries will be screened at the “Free Zone” this year, divided into thirteen program units. The program includes Red Sky by Christian Petzold, Club Zero by Jessica Hausner, Joan Baez: I am Noise by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navaski and Maeve O’Boyle, Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodovar… The festival will open on the 31st of October, with the screening of the winner of the “Silver Lion” in Venice, the film Evil Does Not Exist by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
This year’s festival was supported by the Creative Europe MEDIA subprogram, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, Reconstruction Women’s Fund, the Secretariat for Culture of the City of Belgrade, the City Administration for Culture of the City of Novi Sad, Film Center Serbia and the French Institute.