THE ROUND TABLE WOMEN DIRECTORS OF SOUTHEAST EUROPE

At the initiative of FEST Board member, director Slobodan Sijan, one of the associated programs of the 37th FEST will be the Round Table Women Directors of Southeast Europe. Mr. Slobodan Sijan says that the topics were many, adding the women directors imposed themselves with their presence and expansion.

This entire project aims at transcending the regular event in FEST and therefore at the very beginning the expert for Eastern European film Ronald Halloway was included. Mr. Halloway will be the moderator and introductory speaker and owing to him and his efforts, Belgrade will also see Zilke Johana Rebiger, the Director of the International Festival of Women Film in Dortmund.

The participants of the Round Table will also be Kostadina Jordanova, Head of the Women Film Studies Cathedra on the St. Andrews University in Scotland and Bernd Buder, Advisor of several film festivals (Go East, Berlinale…).

The lectures from the Round Table are planned to be published in a bilingual publication by the FEST Directorate and we hereby call all colleagues and all interested persons to attend the Round Table on Thursday, February 26th in Sava Centar, Hall 3, Level 0.

The Round Table should become a regular accompanying program of future FESTs, whose topics would change every year and would pertain to Southeastern Europe film, says the initiator of that event Slobodan Sijan, adding:

“We didn’t want to focus on a theme that would concern only our cinematography, but I have to admit we did consider it. The expansion of films signed by directors such as Jasmila Zbanic, Teona Strugar Miteva or Aida Begic have imposed the theme of the Round Table. I have mentioned these three ladies because we have seen the films of the first two on previous FESTs, while Aida Begic’s “Snow” was recently shown on the Author’s Film New Festival. Otherwise, I think that when we say “women directors of Southeast Europe” we mean precisely these three ladies, while the list we have before us includes about 70 names of women directors from this region.”