Serbia hosts national film awards and launches MEDIA Desk

Serbia has officially launched its MEDIA Desk, as part of its membership in Creative Europe’s MEDIA sub-programme, and has hosted its first national film awards since 2007.

The opening of Serbia’s MEDIA Desk, funded by Creative Europe to promote its funding programme and assist applicants in Serbia, is a crucial step in Serbia’s participation in the MEDIA sub-programme, which supports the audiovisual and multimedia sector.

“Membership in the MEDIA sub-programme of Creative Europe is of crucial importance for Serbian cinema,” Boban Jevtić, director of Film Centre Serbia, told Screen.

“Our film-makers, production companies and other film professionals will now have access to its 17 different categories of support, and we will immediately start training sessions in order to get them acquainted with the programme and process of project submission and grants,” he added.

The first training session on application for grants was held as part of FEST Forward, the industry section of the 44th Belgrade International Film Festival, which took place from 26 February — 6 March.

The film festival included the first official national film awards in Serbia since 2007. Last year, FEST, which had existed as a non-competitive festival, introduced international and national competitions. In the national competition, Humidity (2016, dir. Nikola Ljuca) won the Belgrade Victor award for best film.

“FEST has a strong reputation and a sense of glamour, and it has the largest audience of all festivals in the country, so it is a natural choice,” said Mr Jevtić.

Source: Screen Daily