The 13th Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival was closed in Drvengrad on Mokra Gora, and the first Golden Egg award was given to Bogdan Murešan for the film “Christmas Gift”.
Aliaksei Palujan won the Silver Egg Award for the movie Lake of Fortune, while the third Bronze Egg award went to Ingrid Santos for the movie Bif.
The jury of this year’s festival made up of Italian director, writer and producer Paolo Virzi, French writer and screenwriter Tonino Benacquista and chess grandmaster Vladislav Tkachev, has decided to award the director for the most poetic film with director Dimitar Kutmanov for the film “The Distant Home”, with special jury recognition received the film “Havana, Cuba” by Andrei Huculek.
The Vilko Filach Award for Best Photography was presented to Hamed Bagheian for the Iranian film Other. The award was presented by French director of photography Michel Amatje.
At the closing ceremony of the festival in the movie theater “Damned Avlija”, the founder of “Kustedorf”, celebrated Serbian director Emir Kusturica said that this would be a good time to open the festival immediately.
– We live in a time where everything is happening in reality and fiction. The fiction we acknowledge in this week of political incorrectness. First of all, we should remind ourselves that one of the most important people in the 21st century is imprisoned, and that is Julian Assange. The biggest applause is paid to Julian Assange, who is now dying in a prison in London – said Kusturica.
Addressing the crowded movie theater, Kusturica said this is a festival that has been trying to do the same for the 13th time.
– It should be remembered that we initially screened 35mm films. It should be remembered that we have switched from analog to the digital world. There is no popular musician today who does not record analog, which does not mean that cinema will return to the analog era. So, we should be very stubborn in what we initially did – said Kusturica.
He emphasized that this world has already been greatly changed and that he believes that this festival can in part influence the small change towards the utopian world.
– So you have to be very stubborn in what we initially did. At this festival, we tried to get married artistically and commercially. This is exactly what should be insisted on, so we should not insist on making art films that will be watched by families in their homes, or turned into video games – said Kusturica.
21 film directors competed for the festival awards.
The music program included pop-folk-rock group “Haters”, band from Northern Macedonia “Jambo Agushev Orchestra”, French-Romanian-Polish band “Klik hir”, as well as two bands from Serbia – “Dejan Petrović big band” and “Love Hunters.”
The International Film and Music Festival “Kustendorf” was organized by the production company “Rasta International” and sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, Mećavnik grad and TNSO.
TST
