Byzantine Blog

First International Küstendorf Film and Music Festival

The first international Küstendorf Film and Music Festival, founded and hosted by Serbia’s world renown award-winning director Emir Nemanja Kusturica, officially ended on January 21 with the presentation of the awards.

According to the announcement on the Festival’s web site, the award ceremony was preceded by the special award of journalists and critics accredited at the first Kustendorf Film Festival, granted to the Italian director Edoardo de Angelis for "Mystery and Passion of Gino Pacino" and presented by Dubravka Lakic, the journalist of Politika daily.

The jury, headed by the legendary Austrian novelist, poet and playwright Peter Handke, and including Andrea Gambeta and Ninos Mikelidis, stressed that it had not been easy to choose the best three movies among the 33 shown student releases from the most important film schools of 12 countries.

The third prize, Bronze Egg was awarded to the director Franco Lolli for the film "Like Everybody Else", Silver Egg was awarded to the documentary "Possessed" by the British director Martin Hempton and the first prize of the Festival, Golden Egg, was given to the director Jose E. Iglesias for the film "In Between".

Nikita Mihalkov: Kusturica Turns his Whole Life Into a Piece of Art

Organized by Rasta International and sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the Küstendorf Festival was a week long, competitive, invitation-only retreat focusing on the work of student filmmakers from 12 countries, in Drvengrad, also called Küstendorf by its creator — Kusturica's own magical, rustic little village built on the breathtaking hill of Mokra Gora, in the heart of Serbia.

Dedicated to “great contemporary authors and future filmmakers,” Küstendorf Film Festival in its first year consisted of five segments. Beside the Competition Program featuring 33 works of film students from 12 countries, the Festival also hosted a Retrospective of Greatness, dedicated to famous Russian director, actor, producer, writer and filmmaker Nikita Mihalkov showing four of his films.

At a press conference dedicated to his work, renown Russian artist said:

“Emir Kusturica is not only a professional, but also a great personality. He turns his whole life into a piece of art, as well as this village and this festival, too. It’s absolutely fascinating how he manages to express the atmosphere of his own world. Atmosphere is the most important and it has to exist in everybody’s life. It’s something I insist on in my films. The future of this festival is in atmosphere and it will exist as long as the atmosphere lasts”.

“[...] I always need a feeling while I work. The whole modern civilization loses it’s humanity while attempting to make human life easier. One loses a wish for a human touch, and even breaks the habit of listening the sound of turning the pages. Nowadays, it is much easier to get on the Internet and to read the plot of ‘Ana Karenina’ instead of reading the whole book because the knowledge is expensive and paid by the precious time. If I want to understand Russian art of painting, I have to invest some time in research. That is why I do not need an information but the feeling, and that was my reasoning while I was making film 12.”

Retrospective of Russian Film was dedicated to short and graduate films of giants of Russian cinematic art such as Tarkovski, Konchalovski and Mihalkov. Contemporary Trends was a workshop involving the authors and actors of the year's best releases and their interaction with students from film schools and academies. Evergreen program was focused on the best films from the 1990s.

Variety: Kusturica's Village, an Island of Idealism and Creativity

Nick Holdsworth of the L.A.-based Variety, considered “the premier source of entertainment news since 1905”, with offices in New York, Washington, London, Paris, Rome and Hong Kong, who covered the Küstendorf Festival in great detail, wrote:

“Structured around daytime workshops with filmmakers such as Russia's Nikita Mikhalkov and British director Michael Radford, whom Kusturica number among his influences, afternoon screenings and an evening competition program of student films finished off by midnight concerts in Mechavnik's main cinema -- a large hall cut into the hillside beneath a restaurant and swimming pool -- Kustendorf is an ambitious project.

“Weary of a film world that no longer "generates idealism" -- which he observes Hollywood did so well from the 1930s until the 1970s when it switched to generating only money -- Kusturica created an island of idealism for his festival.

“"Kustendorf will never become commercial," Kusturica says. "Next year I will expand it to bring in five African, five Asian and five South American films."

“With its quaint wooden cobbled streets and genuine old restored wooden structures -- some of which date back 120 years -- Mechavnik, far away from any other town, creates a small but vibrant space that suggests an earlier time when a single visit by Fellini to a film festival could influence cinematic trends for years.

“[...] For the students who are the focus of the competition -- which has screened an array of highly accomplished shorts ranging from Poland's Magdalena Pieta's sad and sordid glimpse of casual sex, "Everything Will Be" to young British documentary director Martin Hampton's shocking depiction of lives blighted by obsessive hoarding, "Possessed" -- it was a week in which to soak up the experience of world-famous directors, screen their work and immerse themselves in film away from any commercial pressures in an atmosphere that was both intimate and intensive.”

Open-Minded, Free, Unrestricted Environment

The impressions of directors and film makers were equally positive.

American director John Thompson (film ‘Songbird’), enjoyed the diametrically opposite, anti-commercial approach to the art of movie making he shared with his colleagues in Serbia:

“This is one of the most refreshing experiences I had in last ten years. In Los Angeles, where I live now, the whole culture is saturated with what is practical. Two most common questions you can hear there are: How big is your budget and how much did you earn? But here, everything is focused on the authors and I really do believe I needed it all at this moment of my studies,” Thompson said.

UK director Martin Hampton (film ‘Possessed’) was most impressed with the feeling of freedom and the beauty of surrounding nature:

“I think it’s very generous motive to bring us all here. This is very open-minded environment, with not much restrictions at all. We are surrounded with all these intensive landscapes in which we can withdraw anytime we get tired of the film atmosphere we’re in,” said Hampton.

“Die Hard 4” Ceremoniously Buried at the Bad Movies Cemetery

Emphasizing its strong stand against the overwhelming commercialization of the cinematic art, the Festival started with a mock-funeral of the 35mm copies of Bruce Willis action blockbuster ‘Die Hard 4’ “at the new founded Bad Movies Cemetery”.

“Funeral procession started out at the Saint Sava Church, accompanied by the sound of funeral march played by the brass orchestra. At the Bad Movies Cemetery, funeral service was given by ‘priest’ Dr. Nele Karajlic, leader of the band ‘No Smoking Orchestra’, and after that, accompanied by the professional mourners’ wailing. Emir Kusturica, our famous director, and creator and founder of the Festival, delivered the eulogy for the late ‘Die Hard 4’ who died very young (2007-2008). After the burial, sad procession started a folk dance, smiles replaced tears, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief and cheered up because there will be more space for new films and authors whose works will not end like this one,” Festival’s web site describes the event, after which Russia's Nikita Mihalkov officially opened the first Kustendorf Festival.

Thanking his friend and colleague Emir Kusturica for the invitation, famous Russian director said that he had always believed in popular saying ‘It is not important what you do, but who do you do it with’, and expressed his pleasure for not only being the guest of such an important festival, but also for the honor to open it and to be a part of it’s program. According to Variety, Mihalkov also announced his intention to set up a film academy.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica also attended the opening ceremony and greeted Kusturica's guests. The official competition selection was opened by Vojislav Brajovic, Serbian Minister of the Culture.