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Sergei Loznitsa and Svetozar Cvetković named laureates of the Aleksandar Lifka Award at the 32 nd European Film Festival Palić

04.07.2025.

The Aleksandar Lifka Award for outstanding contribution to European cinema will, in keeping with tradition, be presented at the 32 nd edition of the European Film Festival Palić, taking place from July 19 to 25, 2025, in Palić and Subotica. This year's recipients of the prestigious award are Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa in the category of foreign creators, and Serbian actor Svetozar Cvetković in the category of domestic creators.

The awards will be presented in person: to Sergei Loznitsa at the festival's opening ceremony on July 19, and to Svetozar Cvetković on July 20, at the Summer Stage in Palić.

Sergei Loznitsa was born in 1964 in the city of Baranovitchi, USSR (now Belarus) and grew up in Kiev, Ukraine. He graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in Applied Mathematics in 1987. From 1987 to 1991, he worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in artificial intelligence research. In 1997, Loznitsa graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow. Sergei Loznitsa has been making films since 1996, and by now has directed 28 award-winning documentaries and 5 fiction films.

Loznitsa’s feature debut My Joy (2010) premiered in the main competition in Cannes. His films – both fiction and documentary – have been recognized with major awards including the FIPRESCI prize at the Festival de Cannes for In the Fog in 2012, the Best Director Prize of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section for his feature film Donbass in 2018, a Special Jury Prize of the L’Oeil D’Or Award in Cannes for Babi Yar. Context in 2021, as well as the IDFA Award for Best Film for Mr. Landsbergis that same year; among many other international awards. In 2013 Sergei Loznitsa founded the film production company Atoms & Void. Based in Europe since 2001, Sergei Loznitsa continues to work on both documentary and fiction projects.

Svetozar Cvetković (b. 1958) graduated in acting in 1980 from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade under the mentorship of Professor Ognjenka Milićević. In 1981, he became a member of the Atelje 212 theatre ensemble, where he remained employed as an actor until October 2023. Over the course of his career at Atelje 212 and other stages across the country, he performed more than 70 major roles in contemporary theatre repertoire, working with some of the most prominent directors of the Serbian theatre scene.

He has appeared in more than 100 feature films, television series, and TV dramas, primarily produced in the former Yugoslavia and Serbia, with several international projects as well. Over the course of his career, he has collaborated with directors who have significantly shaped Yugoslav cinema, including Dušan Makavejev (Montenegro, Manifesto, Gorilla Bathes at Noon), Živojin Pavlović (On the Road to Katanga, Body Scent, Deserter, The State of the Dead), Stole Popov (Happy New Year, Tattoo), Goran Paskaljević (Time of Miracles, Tango Argentino), Miša Radivojević (In the Middle of Nowhere, Awakening from the Dead, The Reject, How I Was Stolen by the Germans), Aleksandar Petković (The Outlaw), Goran Marković (The Tour, Falsifier, Multitude and Minority, Delirium Tremens). He has also worked with internationally recognized filmmakers and notable directors from the wider region, such as ​​Franco Rossi (Quo Vadis?), Enki Bilal (Bunker Palace Hotel, Tykho Moon), Goran Rebić (Donau, Duna, Dunaj, Dunav, Dunarea), Srđan Vuletić (Summer in the Golden Valley), and Dimitri de Clercq (You go to my head).

For his work in film, he has received the highest honors in Serbian cinema, including acting awards at festivals in Niš, Sopot, and Novi Sad. In 1994, he won the Grand Prix for Best Actor at the Magdeburg Festival for Gorilla Bathes at Noon, and in 2017, the Critic's Choice Award for Best Actor in Houston for the film You Go to My Head. He was awarded the Pavle Vuisić Award for lifetime achievement in acting in 2024 (Niš), and the prestigious Sterija Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2025 (Novi Sad). He is also a member of the European Film Academy (EFA).

The Palić European Film Festival has been supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the Provincial Secretariat for Culture, Public Information and Relations with Religious Communities, the City of Subotica, the European Union through the Creative Europe MEDIA program, as well as numerous friends and media partners.

Gorky List has been a sponsor and supporter of the Palić European Film Festival for more than 20 years, both as an indispensable part of our artistic scenography and a partner that encourages the audience to delve into the experiences of the showcased films through the Gorky List Audience Award.