The slogan of the jubilee 50th FEST is NEW BRAVE WORLD, almost an anagram of the first - BRAVE NEW WORLD based on the novel by Aldous Huxley. Humanity has changed in the last half century regarding geopolitics, technology, economy, health. Some inventions that surround us are better than before and make life easier, some are worse because they make life more difficult and faster, yet man, at the beginning and end of both good and bad film, always finds a way.
The world around us will be new after the coronavirus, and it will take courage for the fight, an idea and survival.
Belgrade FEST is raising the curtain further towards its first century of existence. That path is paved with films that have been shown at FEST thus far, with the emotions they stimulated, the memories they wrote down for us. Ahead of us are films that have yet to be made, and above all, challenges that sometimes even a film cannot predict.
What after the 50th FEST?
A complete turn, in the Hollywood language, reboot.
The 51st FEST should not resemble the previous fifty. It should be a new beginning in every way, beginning with the date the Festival is being held where the end of September seems appropriate since that is the time Cannes, Venice and Toronto are closing, and the autumn Hollywood pre-Oscar season is on the doorstep. In the current February-March period, with global platforms such as Netflix being producers and majors rushing to cinemas for that reason, it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure and preserve the Gala selection.
What should be the imperative of the future FEST is a strong competition programme, which was launched by Jugoslav Pantelić in 2015, and which we together redefined and shaped into a single competition programme in 2020, with a further increase in the prize fund. The same treatment deserves the so-called industry segment FEST FORWARD which we are bringing back to FEST.
Let us be brave and capable for a new world and a new FEST in it!
For another fifty years, for another round!
Ivan Karl
President of the FEST Board
