The domestic feature film “How to be Slobodan” by the young director Nikola Polić won the EU Audience Award for the best European documentary film at the 17th Beldocs.
The awarding of the EU Audience Award was held in the Big Hall of the Belgrade Youth Centre, during which the Ambassador of the European Union in Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, presented the award to the director, which also includes a monetary award of EUR 1,500. Over 2,000 viewers of Beldocs participated in the voting for the best European documentary film. The film “How to be Slobodan” received 582 audience votes.
“With this award, we wanted to give a voice to you, the Beldocs audience, because we know that you have a special relationship with this festival”, said Ambassador Giaufret when announcing the winner of the award and added that the EU is particularly proud of the partnership with Beldocs, because this festival unites different voice through creation. Ambassador Giaufret also emphasized the importance of the Creative Europe programme, through which the EU supports not only the film industry in Serbia, but also individual artists and creators.
In her opening address, the Beldocs festival director, Mara Prohaska Marković, thanked the European Union, which has been supporting Beldocs since 2016 through the Creative Europea Media programme. Art director of Beldocs, Marko Grba Singh, thanked the audience and announced the Beldocs+ online platform.
“During the coming week, from May 30 to June 7, you will be able to watch films from domestic and foreign competition programs online”, Grba Singh said.
How to be Slobodan is the story of a painter from Belgrade, Slobodan (60), whose works in the 1990s were compared to the works of the Italian painter Vasarelli. Twenty years later, Slobodan organizes a solo exhibition to reclaim his place in the art world. However, the exhibition does not change his everyday life, but he gains more awareness of himself and his family.
Nikola Polić, the director of the award-winning film, says that his creation focuses on the importance of the family in the lives of each of us.
“The idea to make a film came spontaneously, since Slobodan is the father of my friend Ana. We set out to make a film about him as an artist, but after the first scenes I shot, I saw that the story had many layers and that it was not only about showing an artist and his struggle to find his way in this society, but also about his family,” says Polić.
The Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival, which featured many important works by European and international authors, closed with the premier of the film “The Film Changed the World” directed by Darko Bajić and Siniša Cvetić. This documentary is a tribute to the filmmaker Miloš Miša Radivojević, director and screen writer, who, through a conversation with Darko Bajić, reveals the process of creating films that secured him the position of a radical filmmaker and one of the most significant representatives of Yugoslav and European art cinematography from the period of the “black wave” to this day.
The Republic of Serbia has been participating in the “Creative Europe” programme since 2014. The Creative Europe Serbia Desk consists of two offices: the MEDIA Desk Serbia, established within the Film Centre of Serbia, and the Culture Desk Serbia, located in the Ministry of Culture and Information. As part of the Culture Desk, Antenna office in Novi Sad implements the culture sub-programme “Culture in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina”. Since 2014, more than 300 Serbian companies and organizations withdrew more than EUR 24 million through the Creative Europe programme.
