Archive 2011

The 4th Edition of ENFF

Eastern Neighbours Film Festival 2011 took place from 26-30 October at Louis Hartlooper Complex in Utrecht. The festival screened 31 films from 9 countries, aiming to raise cultural awareness among people in Eastern Europe and provide insight into neighbouring countries’ history. The focus was on films made in the East and Southeast European countries which have not yet become members of the European Union. Also, rare and yet unseen material can be found in the selection.

Opening Film

ENFF opened with the film “Do Not Forget Me Istanbul”, in which six successful directors came together to present their perspective of contemporary Istanbul – a city for once seen by the eyes of non-Turkish filmmakers. The directors – Bosnian Aida Begic, Serbian Stefan Arsenijevic, Greek Stergios Niziris, Armenian-American Eric Nazarian, Palestinian Omar Shargawi and Hany Abu-Assad – wanted to remind people that Istanbul is a city whose memories exceed Turkey’s borders and whose history is written by people from these countries as well.

A Focus on Turkey

“Do Not Forget Me Istanbul” is part of this year’s spotlight on Turkey. Each year the festival has one country’s cinematography in focus and this year it is Turkey. The program features a selection of astonishing Turkish films from both new talents and old masters. A discovery among them is the award-winning documentation ‘’Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits’’ (2011) by Imre Azem. The film is a critical view on Istanbul’s special planning and shows the dramatic changes in the city’s landscape. Among the classic films shown at ENFF, one of the most loved films in Turkish film history can be discovered: ‘’The Girl with the Red Scarf’’ (1977) by Atif Yilmaz.

This program also contains a retrospective of Reha Erdem, the rising star of Turkish cinema. His stories about humanity lead to strong and appealing films says Rada Šešić, programmer of the festival. ENFF selected four of his films that have not often been presented outside of Turkey, including the latest poetic and metaphysical work ‘’Kosmos’’ (2010).

New Territories

The feature films mirror contemporary filmmaking from unknown cinematic landscapes and bring directors from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine to the screen. ‘’The War Is Over’’ by Mitko Panov (Macedonia, 2010) or ‘’Belvedere’’ by Ahmed Imamović (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2010) are negotiating stories from the Balkan war’s troubled aftermath. In ‘’Mother of Asphalt’’ by Dalibor Matanic (Croatia, 2010) we experience a memorable performance by Marija Skaricic, who will be our special guest at ENFF.

Short Films

Among the ten short films selected within the program, some real gems can be found, including films that have already won awards on the international festival circuit. Both ‘’The Seamstresses’’ by Biljana Garvanlieva (Macedonia/Germany, 2010), and Kiyamet by Ivan Ramadan (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2011) won awards at the Sarajevo Film Festival; while the Serbian entry ‘’I Already Am What I Want to Be’’ by Dane Komljen was awarded in Cannes 2010. The Ukrainian shorts ‘’Deafness’’ and ‘’Diagnose’’ by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (2010) have also been selected at the Berlinale. Since films from Kosovo are still a rarity today, ENFF is also proud to show the Kosovar animation ”The Bridge” from Jeton Neziraj, who is also known as a theatre director in the Balkans.

Old Hit

A special highlight of the festival was the screening of “Who’s That Singing Over There? / Ko To Tamo Peva?’’ by Slobodan Šijan (Yugoslavia,1980), considered by many as one of the best and funniest films ever made in the Balkans.

VIP guests

The audience enjoyed close encounters with the guests of the festival, such as Marija Skaricic, the shooting star of Europe from Croatia, who stars in Dalibor Matanic’s film “Mother of Asphalt”; the young Bosnian director Nejra Hulisic of ‘’Her Cinema Love’’; Imre Azem, the director of “Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits”; Huseyin Karabey, the producer of “Do Not Forget Me Istanbul”; Belma Bas, the director of “Zephyr”; Emel Celebi, Documentarist Film Festival’s art director; the beautiful Turku Turan, actress in “Kosmos”; Zahra Derya Kos, one of the filmmakers of “Tales from Kars”, and the film critic Cuneyt Cebenoyan.

Special programs

Besides the regular film program, the festival organizes a workshop for young filmmakers. Under the mentorship of documentary filmmaker Goran Devic from Croatia and Dutch fiction filmmaker Eddy Terstall, aspiring film directors will learn how to deal with sensitive subjects, political issues, and justice as part of their documentary works.
Testing new forms of communication, the interactive project Uber Life by Lazar Bodroza, a young Serbian filmmaker, explores multiple forms of storytelling. Shaped as a fairytale, the audience can decide in which direction a narrative shall develop.

Besides having a main venue in Utrecht, part of the program was shown in other Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Leeuwarden, Zevenaar and Leiden.