Without a false glory
„It is nice to be with you tonight“, said Mira Banjac addressing Srđan Karanović, and then she presented him the award for the outstanding contribution to European cinema named after the Subotica’s pioneer of film, Aleksandar Lifka. This is the way 18th European Film Festival started at a beautiful stone stage last night.
Most charming performance had authors of the Welcome to Germany whose screening opened the Festival. Three female authors, director Yasemin Şamdereli, Nesrin Şamdereli and actress Demet Gul, gain upon audience after they invited them in Serbian to enjoy their comedy about Turkish family in their new German homeland.
Minister of culture Predrag Marković decided to speak unofficially and congratulated the Festival for the taken path from the small parade, established in the nineties, to the great festival it has become today.
Last night Palić Film Festival became of age in the year of two significant jubilees, two one-hundred-year anniversaries: first Serbian Film and first permanent cinema theatre of Aleksandar Lifka. Mayor of Subotica Saša Vučinić announced that the Grand Terrace will fully shine this year and that one of the Festival programmes will take part for the first time in the renovated impressive ambience. „20th anniversary Festival will celebrate at totally different and more beautiful Palić“, announced Vučinić.
Regional dimension of the Festival is crucial for the support of Voivodina’s Secretary of Culture underlined its undersecretary Radoslav Petković. „ Meeting of different visions of the world trough films is specialty of this festival. The fact that we grew up with a film makes us unaware how much this young art influenced our lives“, said our famous writer.
Members of the Official Jury as well as members of the Critic’s Jury were introduced. Fabulous lake fairies, decorated with flowers, welcomed the audience at the entrance of the Summer Stage. And all that was glamorous. At the opening and around it, there was no false glory.
