The Main Competition Programme of the 50th FEST consists of 20 films from France, Germany, the USA, Romania, Russia, Italy, Poland, Greece, Slovenia, Northern Macedonia, Australia, Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia. The best film from this selection will receive the Belgrade Victor award, and the jury award, the award for the best director, the best screenplay, the best lead actress, the best lead actor as well as the best debut will also be presented.
The winners will be decided by a five-member international jury chaired by actor and producer Milos Biković, and the members are actress Tamara Dragićević, director of the Hungarian Film Archive György Ráduly, film director Argyris Papadimitropoulos and actor Toni Gojanović.
Below we present all the members of the jury.
JURY PRESIDENT:
MILOŠ BIKOVIĆ
ACTOR AND PRODUCER, SERBIA
He graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Acting Department, and was taught by Dragan Petrović Pele. He completed his master's degree at the same faculty in 2012, when he also enrolled in doctoral studies. In Serbia, he is best known for his leading roles in South Wind and Montevideo, Taste of a Dream, the most popular films and TV series in the last 15 years in the region. For these projects, he won several significant acting awards. Some of his most notable roles are in the films: South Wind and South Wind 2 - Speed Up (actor and co-producer), Beyond the Edge with Antonio Banderas, Ice, The Balkan Line (actor and co-producer) and Hotel Belgrade (actor and co-producer).
Highly regarded in Russia, Biković is best known for his roles in the films Soulless 2 and Sunstroke, directed by Oscar winner Nikita Mikhalkov. The film Son of a Rich, in which he played the lead role, became the most successful film in the history of Russian cinema.
Confirmation of his significant influence is the Medal of Pushkin, a state decoration of the Russian Federation awarded to him by President Vladimir Putin for achievements in the arts and culture, as well as for his contribution to the preservation and promotion of the Russian language abroad.
In 2020, he launched his own production company Archangel Digital Studios, which cooperates with Iervolino Studios by Iervolino and Lady Bacardy Entertainment (an affiliate of Iervolino Entertainment, founded by the prominent producer Andrea Iervolino). The companies have been working on the development of Puffins Impossible, a series of animated shorts for a year now, in which the main character is voiced by actor Johnny Depp, and whose complete content, from the initial concept to the final details, is created by talented artists from Serbia. These short-animated cartoons are shown on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
In 2021, Biković became the president of the Cinematography Group of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.
TAMARA DRAGIČEVIĆ
ACTRESS, SERBIA
She graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Acting Department, in the class of Dragan Petrović Pele. In Serbia, she is best known for her leading roles in the films Toma and Darkness, as well as the series Military Academy and The Scent of Rain in the Balkans. She also starred in the films Panama and We Will Be the World Champions, as well as in the series Žigosani u reketu and Montevideo, Taste of a Dream.
Last year, she was awarded the Empress Theodora Award at the Festival of Acting Achievements in Niš for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the film Toma.
Tamara Dragičević is a permanent member of the Atelier 212 Theatre, where she has played more than ten roles.
GYÖRGY RÁDULY
Director of the Film Archive of the National Film Institute, Hungary
Since 2017, he has been the director of the Film Archive of the National Film Institute of Hungary, where he manages the complete development and modernization project. After studying corporate management at Sciences-Po in Paris and economics and marketing at ESSCA France, he worked in France as a producer and distributor specializing in Hungarian and Eastern European film classics, and was responsible for creating a network for the distribution and release of Central European film heritage DVDs in France. Since 2014, he has been realizing the cinema distribution of Hungarian film classics in France, including Miklós Jancsó's The Round-Up and Károly Makk's Love, which were selected in the Cannes Classics programme. He is the founder and director of the Budapest Classics Film Marathon, an international festival of restored film, and since 2019 he has been a member of the Executive Board of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF).
ARGYRIS PAPADIMITROPOULOS
DIRECTOR, GREECE
Argyris Papadimitropoulos (1976, Athens) is a Greek director and producer. He studied film in Athens and Oxford. He has directed four feature films: Bank Bang (2009), Wasted Youth (2011), Suntan (2016) and Monday (2020), and the latest two were included in the Main Competition Programme of the 2017 and 2021 Belgrade FEST. His films have won critical acclaim and commercial success and have been screened at more than 40 festivals around the world, including Toronto, Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary ... He has produced some of the most significant works of new Greek cinema such as Boy Eating the Bird's Food (2012) and At Home (2014).
TONI GOJANOVIĆ
ACTOR, CROATIA / GERMANY
He graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb in 2006. He has starred in many films, including The Border Post and Sixth Bus as well as in the HBO series Success. He is currently starring in the British version of the original Swedish series Before We Die for Channel 4.
He has lived and worked in Germany for many years, where he acts in the theatre. There he was a member of several ensembles, private and state theatres. He has performed in a great number of plays, from dramas and comedies, through classical theatre and musicals, to operettas.
His new film Fünf Finger sind ne Faust, in which he plays the lead role, will be premiered this year.
Toni Gojanović also works on projects for ZDF television.
