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KULTURA / CULTURE

A festival made by hand “Each individual film is thoroughly considered and only included in the selection for some very good reason,” says the Beldocs selector BEST DOCUMENTARIES

ness of environmental preservation characterise the best eateries. The festival programme will al- so include the film Occupied City, by Oscar winner Steve Rodney Mc- Queen, which reexamines the bur- den of history by returning to the period of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. Based on the Bianca Stigler book Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945, the film documents the streets of to- day’s city that witnessed heinous crimes during the Nazi occupation. Under the scope of its International Competition Programme, Beldocs also presents the Estonian film Sun- dial, directed by Liis Nimik. - This is a film that emerged out of a need to recreate a feeling that I have been familiar with for most of my life, but which began fading as I increasingly became a city per- son. The nature of the north creates a specific attitude in people who live close to it and who decide to live in its rhythm in a village in Estonia,” says Nimik for Elevate. Under the auspices of its Fire- works section, the festival will mark the 30 th anniversary of the premiere of cult biographical documentary Crumb by American director Terry Zwigoff. This screening will provide local audiences with their first op- portunity to watch this classic doc- umentary on the big screen. Crumb is a direct portrait of Robert Crumb, a legendary underground cartoon- ist, rebel and satirist of contempo- rary American culture. “Beldocs, as I like to say, is a handmade festival, where each in- dividual film is really thoroughly considered and only included in the selection for some really good reason. As such, the audience al- ways has an opportunity to watch both major festival hits and, of- ten, world and international pre- mieres of some less noticed films that we consider worthy of high- lighting. Ultimately, Beldocs is a fes- tival where you can meet the entire festival team sitting alongside the audience at screenings. See you at the cinema,” says festival selector Igor Stanojević speaking for Elevate.

Okupirani grad / Occupied City

T he Beldocs festival will this year once again bring premiere screen- ings of award-winning films from prestigious world festivals to Belgrade and oth- er cities across Serbia, as well as the latest domestic productions and documentaries by today’s most re- spected filmmakers. Opening this year’s Beldocs at Belgrade’s Dom Omladine youth centre will be the Dragan Jovićević creation Warm Film, which ex- plores the extent to which society has changed when it comes to atti- tudes towards the LGBT population. “We spent years working on Warm Film, due to the complexity of the topic and the very structure of the narrative. It was a challenge to observe the history of cinematog- raphy from the perspective of LG- BT characters. We ended up with a dynamic film that intrigues the au- dience and calls for dialogue, which was my basic intention when I wrote the first version of the script eight

years ago,” we are told by Jovićević. Festivalgoers will also have an opportunity to watch the long-await- ed Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros by documentary film great Frederick Wiseman. He takes us to the Trois- gros family restaurant, which was founded 93 years ago and holds three Michelin stars, where he de- scribes the entire process of prepar- ing exquisite dishes, emphasising that gratitude for nature and aware-

Estonski film „Sunčani sat“ režirala je Lijis Nimik, koja dolazi u Beograd The Estonian film Sundial was directed by Liis Nimik, who is coming to Belgrade

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