“Neighbors” in REX Cultural Centre, Belgrade

Screening of the omnibus film produced in the Ateliers Varan regional documentary workshop

The omnibus film “Neighbors”, the result of this Summer’s Balkan regional documentary filmmaking workshop of Atelier Varan Belgrade, will be shown on Sunday, July 29, at REX Cultural Centre in Belgrade, beginning at 8 p.m.

12 young filmmakers from former Yugoslav republics have been in Belgrade from June 18th, where they have worked together for six weeks on various film exercises and finally the realization of their individual films under the mentorship of filmmakers from one of the most prominent European documentary film schools, Ateliers Varan from Paris.

Directors Jean-Noël Cristiani and Marie Claude Treilhou, director of photography Renaud Personnaz and editor Claudio Martinez, with the help of Srđan Keča and Rajko Petrović from Atelier Varan Belgrade, will introduce these 12 participants to the fundamental parts of the documentary film-making process – from preparation, research and shooting to editing and post-production of a film.

Participants of the workshop, selected among 250 applicants from former Yugoslav countries – Paola Albertini from Pula, Segor Hadžagić from Sarajevo, Ivan Ramljak from Zagreb, Frosina Naumskova from Kumanovo, Bistra Geogrijeva from Skoplje, Visar Sherifi from Prishtina, Ivana Todorović and Dragana Bjelica from Belgrade, Andrea Palašti from Novi Sad, Maša Drndić from Rijeka and Marko Šipka from Banja Luka – will as their final work present an omnibus with the theme “Neighbors”, made up of short films shot in Belgrade. Through contact with an individual or a group of people in the city, each of these films tells a unique short story of our time. Together, these films reveal Belgrade as a one big komshiluk (the Serbo-Croatian word for “neighborhood”), a crossroads of human destinies in the region.

This project was produced and organized by filmmakers from Atelier Varan Belgrade, who themselves took part in a similar Ateliers Varan workshop in Serbia in 2004. After the workshop, they independently formed Atelier Varan Belgrade, a centre for production and promotion of documentary cinema, and have since created 20 films and won numerous awards in international festivals.

The regional documentary filmmaking workshop is supported by the Embassy of France in Belgrade, European Cultural Foundation, Ministry of Culture of Serbia and the Belgrade City Council for Culture. The main partners in the realization of the project are the Faculty for Media and Communication of the Singidunum University, University of Arts and the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, French Cultural Centre and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights.