UNMIK on AIR
Hello and welcome. This is UNMIK On-Air.
In the beginning of September, the city of Prizren
served as the film capital of Kosovo, hosting “Docufest,” Kosovo’s
international documentary and short film festival.
Official master of ceremonies, Kosovo author Fatmir
Lama, helped present some 35 documentaries and short movies from 19 countries.
---------
DocuFest began three years ago when two Prizren
film buffs, Veton Nurkollari and Aliriza Arënliu decided to do something for
the local film scene - complicating matters was the fact that Prizren lacked
even one cinema.
“We didn’t have an idea how the festival is
supposed to be organized but we had a strong will”, says Nurkollari,
co-director of the festival.
Three years after their beginner’s attempts, the
young men are happy with what they’ve accomplished. UNMIK on AIR spoke to
Nurkollari after the wrap-up of this year’s festival.
Nurkollari - "We had less documentary films
this year but we were luckier with the short movies. We had a very good
selection of short movies and I’m sure that even bigger festivals would be
proud on this kind of selection. We were lucky to have contact with the
European Film Academy from Berlin who sent us a collection of 12 of their best
short movies that were selected for the European Film Award - the “Felix”.
An excerpt from Pretty Dyana - that took this
year’s award for best documentary. The story details the life of Kosovo’s Roma
refugees in a Belgrade suburb who make a living transforming Citroen ‘Dyana’
cars into vehicles more suited for the Australian post-apocalyptic film -
Mad-Max.
Its director Boris Mitic has spent the last two
years traveling across Europe with Pretty Dyana, which is his first film. He
was in Prizren during the screening of the film, which is the first Serbian
movie officially shown in Kosovo since the 1999 Conflict.
Mitic - “Everybody was slightly afraid of how
the audience was going to accept a Serbian movie. Especially the scene in which
Romas sort of make fun of UCK. But, from the very beginning everything was
received with laughter People were
applauding and at the end they came to congratulate me. In all the other
festivals I've entered, the reaction was quite the same."
Mitic is planning to enter more festivals with his
new movie, sarcastically titled, ”UNMIK Titanic.” He’s been invited to Europe’s
biggest documentary festival in Holland - International Documentary Film
Festival Amsterdam - to premiere his new work.
As for Kosovo’s film history - documentary and short movie production
flourished here in the past. Now, the Public Film Faculty in Pristina is among
a host of private institutions teaching film in Kosovo - too few according to
Veton Nurkollari, who doesn’t hide the fact that he was unsatisfied with this
year’s documentary selections.
Nurkollari - "The difference between the
quality of domestic and foreign movies is drastic, I have to say. This year we
had just a few movies from Kosovo. I don’t know the real reason, but there were
rumours that certain professors didn’t allow their students to send their
movies to the festival. One of the first reasons to set up a festival like this
was to give an opportunity to students to show their movies."
And teaching film to young people is of primary
concern to Shibon Cleary an Irish filmmaker currently living in Pristina. She
leads an NGO that teaches young people how to make film. She says that Kosovo’s
youth is particularly hungry to learn film adding that there is hope for
Kosovo’s documentary filmmakers.
Cleary - "Really in the end the audiences
here do want to see more thoughtful more imaginative work about their own
region. If anything there isn’t enough work, from the documentary film making
point of view, which is actually more reflective, more classical documentary in
fact. At the moment really I think we’ve gone up searching experimental work of
thinking, which is really coming from a small group and small network of young
people.
Cleary adds that short movie production in Kosovo
will allow people, young people in particular, to start thinking in different
ways - a diversity of thoughts and ideas where little institutional support
exists.
Cleary - "We are talking about low budget productions. People
are getting very small mounts of finance or self-funding them. That’s really a
tendency across the world for independent filmmakers in terms of production."
Jury choices included for Best documentary “Pretty
Dyana” by Belgrade director Boris Mitic. Danish film “Sma Skred/Small
Avalanches” was rewarded best short honor. Special jury’ reward was given to Kosovan
Ymri Lali for the film “The Start is Boring, the Middle Somehow, the End is
Good” and the audience favorite was Burbuqe Berisha’s film “Kosovo 9/11.”
Meanwhile, DocuFest founders Veton Nurkollari and
Aliriza Arënliu
express hope
that more Kosovo filmmakers will contribute to next year’s festival - all with
the idea of vaulting Kosovo’s talent onto the world stage.
And this concludes today’s edition of UNMIK On-Air.
Stay tuned as we bring you more cultural happenings in and around Kosovo.