05-06-2018

FESTIVALS: 9th UnderhillFest, International Festival of Feature Documentary Film Kicks Off

By UnderhillFest

    PODGORICA: The 9th UnderhillFest kicks off today in the Montenegro's Podgorica and will run from 5 until 12 June 2018.

    Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami will be screened at the opening ceremony on 5 June at the Budućnost basketball court in Njegoš park – an unusual documentary by Sophie Fiennes about Grace Jones, a unique figure, whose impact on pop culture is immeasurable.

    Eighteen films will be shown at the 9th UnderhillFest, as in previous years they will be divided into three categories: international, regional and non-competitive. Vuk Perović is the film selector. In the international selection, besides Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, six more filmd will be screened, Infinite Football by Corneliu Porumboiu (42 Km Film), Wonderful Losers: A Different World by Arunas Matelis (Studio Nominum), Risk by Academy award winner Laura Poitras, I See Red People by Bojina Panayotova, Taste of Cement by Ziad Kalthouma and Mari Gulbiani’s Before Father Gets Back, which will have its premiere only one day earlier at the Sheffield Doc Fest. Eight films in the regional selection, The Other Side of Everything by Mila Turajlić (Dribbling Pictures), When Pigs Come by Biljana Tutorov, In Praise of Nothing by Boris Mitić, A Million Dollar Life by Robert Tomić Zuber, The Family by Rok Biček (Cvinger film), My Life Without Air by Bojana Burnać, Playing Men by Matjaž Ivanišin and Ilija Cvetkovski’s With Love. Three films in the non-competitive selection, Ferrante Fever by Giacomo Durzi, Unwanted Girls of Montenegro by Iva Parađanin and Nick Broomfield’s Whitney: Can I be Mine. Marina Gumzi, producer of the film Playing Men, as well as directors Iva Parađanin and Bojana Burnać, will be guests at the 9th UnderhillFest.

    A three-person jury made up of Miljenko Čogelj (Croatia), director Ivan Salatić (Montenegro) and Marko Grba Singh (Srbija), will decide on the Dandelion awards. Films will be screened at the Budućnost basketball court in Njegoš park and at the National library “Radosav Ljumović”.

    Last year we started a programme called RAD, a workshop for women authors of documentary films from our region, which this year grew into CIRCLE, a programme which gathers women authors and producers of documentaries from the South-east Europe countries, who will have the opportunity to, with the cooperation of renowned mentors, develop projects which have an international potential. CIRCLE will have three modules. The first one takes place at the UnderhillFest, second in Novi Sad and the third one at the festival in Leipzig. The programme is developed and managed by Biljana Tutorov and Vuk Perović, and produced by Wake Up Films Novi Sad and UnderhillFest Podgorica.

    Within the 9th UnderhillFest, a three-day programme IN FOCUS will be held for the third time this year in cooperation with Women’s Rights Center in Podgorica. Three films dealing with feminism, human rights and women’s creations will be screened within the programme, I See Red People, Whitney: Can I Be Me and Unwanted Girls of Montenegro.

    After each screening, there will be a discussion about films and ways in which the issues in films manifest in our society.

    DOCU-SCHOOL, a school of documentary film for high-school seniors will be carried out this year as well. Students will be introduced to the world of documentaries by the professor Rajko Petrović. Studens of the Gymnasium in Podgorica and Danilovgrad will learn the basic postulates of documentarism and shoot short documentary films.