On January 22nd Serbian director Želimir Žilnik received the CEI award (Central European Initiative) at the Trieste Film Festival, an event dedicated to films from Central and Eastern Europe.
This annual award, worth €3,000, is for films which look at our contemporary world and focus on dialogue between cultures. In 2018 the award went to Ada Solomon, to salute the Romanian producer’s lifetime career.
This annual award, worth €3,000, is for films which look at our contemporary world and focus on dialogue between cultures. In 2018 the award went to Ada Solomon, to salute the Romanian producer’s lifetime career.
With The Most Beautiful Country in the World, Želimir Žilnik captures – again – the theme of integration. He follows a group of young refugees in Vienna, including a young Afghan man, Bagher Ahmadi. The title evokes the difficulty of defining what is the “most beautiful place in the world” – having to choose between your country of origin, which you have been forced to leave, and the country which then welcomes you. The Serbian director acutely captures the daily events which punctuate the lives of refugees.
A committed film-maker, Želimir Žilnik is one of the leading figures of the Yugoslavian black wave, like Aleksandar Petrović and Dušan Makavejev. He became known internationally in 1969, when he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Early Works. In his more recent work he has focussed on immigration, oscillating between drama and documentary. Logbook_Serbistan, released in 2015, follows refugees crossing Serbia to reach Western Europe.
The Most Beautiful Country in the World is produced by Nanook Film (Austria), co-produced by Factum (Croatia), Tramal Films (Slovenia) and RTV Vojvodina (Serbia).
Sources: http://www.ansa.it , https://cineuropa.org, https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr
