Beldocs 2022 Unveils Full Lineup Including Loznitsa, Tornatore, Stone

Karpo Godina and Želimir Žilnik to be honored with retrospectives

Beldocs, the boutique Eastern European film festival focusing on non-fiction cinema, taking place annually in Belgrade, Serbia, has unveiled a strong lineup for its yet another in-person edition this spring. It will take place May 11th to 18th.

The festival will open with the Serbian premiere of the Sundance Institute-supported “Museum of Revolution”, directed by Srđan Keča. Keča will attend the premiere alongside the film’s protagonists. It will close with the regional premiere of the Ukrainian film “Outside” by Olha Zhurba, about the life of a Roma boy in Ukraine. Though Zhurba will be unable to attend due to the Russian aggression in Ukraine, she is expected to greet the Belgrade audience through video link.

Beldocs team strongly condemns Russian invasion of Ukraine, and stands in solidarity with Docudays UA, the Ukrainian filmmaking community and the people of Ukraine.  Beldocs 2022 will present five films produced or co-produced by Ukraine and two Ukrainian projects will participate in Beldocs in Progress, as part of the industry section of the Festival. In memory of the brutally murdered filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius, winner of the Beldocs Main Prize with “Barzakh”, the festival will exhibit his last fillm “Mariupolis”.

The international competition, as usual dedicated to the fresh voices in documentary cinema, will this year feature 50% films directed or co-directed by female-identifying filmmakers. Titles vying for the top prize will include Jessica Beshir’s Faya Dayi, Antoine Dubois‘ The Police Estate and Morgane Dziurla-Petit’s Excess Will Save Us, among others. The jury of the international competition program will be chaired by director Karpo Godina, and the members are director Marta Popivoda and DocLisboa festival director Miguel Ribeiro.

Beldocs also features a Serbian Competition program, which will this year include both features and short films. Besides world premieres of Landscapes of Pannonian Ferns by Marko Cvejić and Spring by Viktor Horvat, this program will include Without by Luka Papić, Apple and Two Cherries by Mina Petrović, Museum of the Revolution by Srđan Keča, Adjusting by Dejan Petrović and Through My Hands by Koštana Banović. The president of the jury for the Serbian selection is the director Ivana Todorović, and the members are the general director of the Thessaloniki Film Festivals Elise Jalladeau and the programmer of the Berlinale Forum James Lattimer.

The festival also awards the Best Short and Best Teen Film. Best Short will be decided on by the jury consisting of the head of the industry program of the DOK Leipzig Nadja Tennstedt and directors Stefan Pavlović and Liesbeth de Ceulaer. The Best Teen Film award will be decided on by a Teen jury panel.

In all, the 112 films and XR experiences at the festival include 8 world premieres, 17 Serbian premieres and 78 regional premieres from 53 countries.

Slovenia’s Karpo Godina will be honored with a documentary retrospective, while a special retrospective program will feature films the Golden Bear-winner Želimir Žilnik made during his time spent in Germany. Godina and Žilnik will hold Master Classes as part of the Beldocs Industry program. Denmark will receive a curated Focus and this year’s special section, covering a different current topic each year, will this year have the theme of Woman vs System.

The non-competitive sections Fireworks, Meteors, Prime Time and Breeze will include latest works by Oliver Stone, Giuseppe Tornatore, Sergei Loznitsa, Andrea Arnold, James Benning, Radu Jude, Robert B. Wiede, Liz Garbus, Ruth Beckermann, Oliver Hirschbiegel and Andrew Dominik among others.

The full lineup:

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Faya Dayi – Jessica Beshir

A Thousand Fires – Saeed Taji Farouky

Camouflage – Jonathan Perel

Mensch Horst – Mo Rhozyel, Christoph Philipp Gehl

Excess Will Save Us – Morgane Dziurla-Petit

A Night of Knowing Nothing – Payal Kapadia

The One Who Runs Away Is the Ghost – Qinyuan Lei

The Police Estate – Antoine Dubos

Late August – Federico Cammarata, Filippo Foscarini

Republic of Silence – Diana El Jeiroudi

Sweetling – Eva Van Barneveld

The Great Basin – Chivas DeVinck

SERBIAN COMPETITION

Without – Luka Papić

Apple and Two Cherries – Mina Petrović

Museum of the Revolution – Srđan Keča

Landscapes of Pannonian Ferns – Marko Cvejić

Adjusting – Dejan Petrović

Spring – Viktor Horvat

Through My Hands – Koštana Banović

FIREWORKS

1970 – Tomasz Wolski

Guy Weizman: Before/After – Willem Baptist

Faya Dayi – Jessica Beshir

Cow – Andrea Arnold

Luchadoras – Patrick Jasim, Paola Calvo

Adjusting – Dejan Petrović

Trenches – Loup Bureau

Happiness Is a Journey – Ivete Lucas, Patrick Bresnan

The Timekeepers of Eternity – Aristotelis Maragkos

Hide & Seek – Victoria Fiore

METEORS 

Aralkum – Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi

Atlantide – Yuri Ancarani

Berg – Joke Olthaar

Jet Lag – Zheng Lu Xinyuan

La Commune (Paris, 1871)

The Plains – David Easteal

Rewind&Play – Alain Gomis

Saturn and Beyond – Declan Clarke

Memories from the Eastern Front – Radu Jude, Adrian Cioflâncă

The United States of America – James Benning

Detours – Ekaterina Selenkina

Mysterious Object at Noon – Apichatpong Weerasethakul

BREEZE

81 Meters – Jānis Ābele

Aya – Simon Coulibaly Gillard

To Beflower Marble – Sara Stijović

Hooyo, Why Here? – Neema Ngelime

Outside – Olha Zhurba

A People’s Radio – Ballads from a Wooded Country – Virpi Suutari

Oh Dear Sara – Patricia Franquesa

Attention All Passengers – Marek Moučka

Spring – Viktor Horvat

Paraíso – Sérgio Tréfaut

Every Sunday – Keti Papadema

Triplex Confinium – Maria Bălănean

Soldat Ahmet – Jannis Lentz

PRIME TIME

Babi Yar. Context – Sergei Loznitsa

Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People – Cesar Cabral

Ennio – Giuseppe Tornatore

Mr. Landsbergis – Sergei Loznitsa

Jackass Forever – Jeff Tremaine

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass – Oliver Stone

When Flowers Are Not Silent – Andrei Kutsila

Becoming Cousteau – Liz Garbus

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time – Robert B. Weide, Don Argott

Mutzenbacher – Ruth Beckermann

This Much I Know to Be True – Andrew Dominik

The Rossellinis – Alessandro Rossellini, Lorenzo d’Amico de Carvalho

Sabaya – Hogir Hirori

The Painter – Oliver Hirschbiegel

Ascension – Jessica Kingdon

See You Friday, Robinson – Mitra Farahani

Dreaming Walls – Amélie van Elmbt, Maya Duverdier

WOMAN VS SYSTEM 

Calendar Girls – Love Martinsen, Maria Loohufvud

F@ck This Job – Vera Krichevskaya

Apple and Two Cherries – Mina Petrović

Raise the Bar – Guðjón Ragnarsson

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power – Nina Menkes

Life of Ivanna – Renato Borrayo Serrano

FOCUS: DENMARK

Q’s Barbershop – Emil Langballe

Being Eriko – Jannik Splidsboel

A House Made of Splinters – Simon Lereng Wilmont

Dark Blossom – Frigge Fri

The Five Obstructions – Lars Von Trier, Jørgen Leth

The Perfect Human – Jørgen Leth

Into the Ice – Lars Henrik Ostenfeld

RETROSPECTIVE KARPO GODINA

Abyssinia – Karpo Godina

On Love Skills or Film with 14441 Frames – Karpo Godina

The Story of Mr. P. F. – Karpo Godina

Healthy people for Pastime – Karpo Godina

ŽELIMIR ŽILNIK: A DIARY FROM WEST GERMANY

Inventory – Želimir Žilnik

Public Execution – Želimir Žilnik

House Orders – Želimir Žilnik

Request – Želimir Žilnik

Under the Protection of the State – Želimir Žilnik

Farewell – Želimir Žilnik

TEEN 

Children of the Mist – Diễm Hà Lệ

The Mission – Tania Anderson

Raise the Bar – Guðjón Ragnarsson

Loves Me, Loves Me Not – Kathrine Skibsted, Caroline Mathilde Salic, Andrine Moland

SPECIAL SCREENINGS 

(Re)evolution 2.0: Cyborg Quest – Dragan Ilić, Darko Štetin

Italo Disco. The Sparkling Sound of the 80s – Alessandro Melazzini

KOLEKTИV – David Dawson, Nina Vukadin

Kraljevo – A Story of Hope in the Time of Corona – Savo Tufegdžić

Ozymandias – Misho Antadze

Beneath Our Windows – Slobodanka Radun, Vladislava Vojnović

The Last Austrians – Lukas Pitscheider

Reconstruction of the Occupation – Jan Šikl

Scenes from the Life of BIH Film – Mustafa Mustafić

Factory to the Workers – Srđan Kovačević

Signs of Life – Marko Nikolić

XR EXHIBITION: IMMERSIVE REALITY 

The Miracle Basket – Abner Preis

Hydrocosmos – Milad Tangshir

Reeducated – Sam Wolson

Water & Coltan – Daniel Kötter

IN MEMORIAM MANTAS KVEDERAVICIUS (1976-2022)

Mariupolis – Mantas Kvedaravičius

15th Beldocs festival trailer directed by Maria Stojnic, award winning Serbian director.