Archive Cinema City 2014.
The seventh Cinema City International Film Festival was held in Novi Sad, from the 21st of June to 28th of June. During these past eight days, Cinema City has screened over 120 films within ten selections, of which three are competition selections. The National Class selection had three premieres: Mina Đukić’s directorial debut The Disobedient, world premiere of Szabolcs Tolnai’s Strange Forest, and the Bala brothers’ film Love Hunter. We are very pleased to note that all our screenings were jam packed, both indoors and outdoors at Amstel Open Air and Nestea Open Air, the new location at the atrium of the Museum of Vojvodina, which our audience quickly grew in love with.What our audience, especially liked were the films chosen to represent the Israeli cinema in Tribute to Israeli Film, as well as the very entertaining “pop up“ selection California Dreaming and MTV selection of best regional music videos. Our selections 360°, Planet Rock, Up to 10,000 Bucks and CC Shorts maintained their traditional popularity. This year we decided to include the Fresh Danube Films selection, which screens debut accomplishments of young authors from the region, among our competition selections. We were especially proud of our Respect to Zoran Simjanović selection. Simjanović has been a guest of the festival, which made the screenings of this selection all the more memorable, since the audience had a chance to talk to this amazing artist. As is tradition, we have also screened some of the best documentaries from the BELDOCS festival.
We have had over 30,000 visitors, and played host to 500 guests, film professionals and journalists. Cinema City Day Zero – a music warm-up with Collegium Musicum choir, which performed some of the iconic film sounds signed by Zoran Simjanović, was attended by over 1,500 people under the open sky of Amstel Open Air. The festival officially opened the following day with the sold-out screening of The Disobedient.
This year we have established a new programme, Cinema City Pro & HBO Max. This programme is intended for film professionals, networking, and topics of significance for domestic cinema. It is comprised of two parts, Cinema City Campus and Cinema City Industry. The Campus gathered 30 young film directors and producers from the region. Through lectures, talks, and meetings with the guests of the festival these young artists had a chance to come one step closer to making their debut films. The Industry programme, which is unique to this festival, initiated some topics of grave importance to domestic filmmaking, and debates pertaining to the diversity of film, in terms of production and genre. It also addressed the issue of accessing the funds of the MEDIA programme, which is part of Creative Europe. Dag Asbjørnsen, the representative of the MEDIA programme, participated at the panel discussion, and shared with us some very important information not available to the general public. The transcripts of this information will soon be shared with our film professionals.
