With projections of three films in cinema Frosina: “Divine Love”, the British “Ray and Liz” and “Hotel Mumbai” and three more in the Cinematheque, among which the last film from the Homage to Meto Jovanovski, “The house by the railway tracks” and “El Pepe, a life supreme”, tonight ends the 22nd edition of the Skopje Film Festival.
This successful edition brought the audience a rich and varied program: more than 50 new films, many of which were part of the big festivals worldwide, or turned their attention to criticism with innovative expression and authorial approach. They were divided in the programs French Focus, Gala Screenings, European Film Program, Panorama of World Cinema, Queer Film Days, Short Movies, Documentary Movies, Macedonian Production, as well as Homage to the great Macedonian actor, Meto Jovanovski, then two workshops, new European film names as guests, promotions and discussions. Program selectors are Tatjana Janevska, Nawid Sarem, Vladan Petkovic and Alexei Dmitrov.
This year the festival was officially opened with the Macedonian and world premiere of “Second Chance”, directed by Marija Dzidzeva. Two premieres of the short Macedonian films “Comma” directed by Sezer Salihi and the new short film by Ana Jakimska “Neon hearts” were also part of the festival.
The homage in honor of the great Meto Jovanovski was held in the Cinematheque of North Macedonia and within this program eight films were shown, including the cult “Tattoo” (1991), and the recent “The Judgment” (2014) by the director Stefan Komandarev.
Since last year, the Skopje Film Festival started with the realization of the program “Queer Film Days”, which continued on this edition of the festival. As part of this program films that refuse to be invisible and boldly recount stories that create a new cultural space are screened. Through a policy of representation through film art, the festival attempts to open up the themes that spring from queer culture, to reconsider the contexts, experiences and ideas through the film crew and create an inclusive place where voices from the margins will be articulated. The selector of this program is Aleksandar Kovachevski.
Within the framework of this year’s edition of the Skopje Film Festival, organized by Creative Europe MEDIA Desc MK and in cooperation with the Film Agency, a training program “The Art of Good Pitching: Preparation and Practice” was held with Bryan McGill.
The second workshop on basic film techniques was held in cooperation with Youth Artivists For Change and Woman Alliance, and trainers of this four-day program were Chris Belloni, producer and director and Nienke Eijsink from the Netherlands and Saleem Salameh and Hannis Bagashov.
In Kotur, a new festival space, the audience had the opportunity to meet with Kahane Cooperman, an American producer and director of the documentary “Joe’s Violin”, which was nominated for Oscar in 2017.
After the screening of the movie “Freak and Chic” for Jean Paul Gaultier, a discussion about fashion and gender, sexuality and performance with a special guest Louise Wallenberg, a fashion studies professor at the Center for Fashion Studies at the University of Stockholm, was held. The discussion was led by Kristina Gligorovska, a fashion researcher.
Guests of the festival were the selector Nawid Sarem from France and the actress from the movie “Acid”, Anastasiya Evgrafova.
The author of the posters for this year’s edition of the festival and the Homage to Meto Jovanovski is Macedonian designer Zoran Kardula.
The Skopje Film Festival would like to express gratitude to the North Macedonia Film Agency, all the helpers and collaborators, the media sponsors, the cinemas “Millennium” and “Frosina”, the Cinematheque of North Macedonia, the cafe Cotur and most of all, its audience.