International Festival of Ethnological Film

The closing ceremony of the 31st International Festival of Ethnological Film was held at the cinema hall of the Ethnographic museum in Belgrade оn the last evening of the Festival: October 6th, 2022, 8 PM. The International Jury of the Festival, comprised of Sandrine Loncke, ethnomusicologist and anthropologist, Meghanne Barker, anthropologist, and Ivan Milosavljević, director, has reviewed and evaluated films in the Festival’s competitive programs.

The jury has decided to award to following films, and stated the following:

Grandprix “Dragoslav Antonijević” goes to the film

Marija + Toma, by Eluned Zoe Aiano and Alesandra Tatić,Serbia

Marija + Toma is a charming, bittersweet short film. Captivating with its deceptive simplicity, this short film condenses many stories – small ones about the local people and their customs and beliefs, as well as big ones about love, life, death and the afterlife.

Best National Film Award goes to the film

Landscapes of Pannonian Ferns, by Marko Cvejić, Serbia, Slovenia

« I have been dreaming about the sea beneath us for a while now, boundless and restless. The Pannonian sea is gone, only cornfields remain ». In a voice that whispers in our ear, Marko Cvejić tells us the story of the withdrawal of the Pannonian Sea and the settlement, in several waves, of a whole people in solidarity, on the fertile lands left vacant.

Against a backdrop of cornfields and windmills as far as the eye can see, alternating with fictional scenes evoking feudal times, the film plunges us, in turn, into the scattered and disjointed slices of life of a rural and working-class society that oscillates between conflict and conviviality, work and revelry, alcoholism and piety, and into the diversity of musical forms of expression, both ceremonial and festive, of the regions covered by the sea.

The original soundtrack, which runs through the film like a haunting leitmotif, culminates at the end in a choral version that gives the images an epic dimension.

Eminently evocative, Landscapes of Pannonian ferns is an allegorical meditation on a homogeneous yet culturally diverse agricultural world that struggles to exist amidst the vast expanses of intensive farming that now colonize the ancient geographical unit of the Pannonian sea basin.

Marko Cvejić thus offers us a bewitching auteur film, carried by an original aesthetic and a poetic cinematographic language, the sole capable of telling the unspeakable.

Best International Film Award goes to the film

Brave, by Val Wilmarc, Haiti

Brave is a strikingly rich film, in aesthetic and content. Val Wilmarc offers us, at once, an intimate yet understated portrait of the director’s mother, as she mourns the loss of her own mother, an Haitian priestess, many years after her death, a beautifully filmed depiction of a voodoo ritual, and a poignant look at the cultural disjunctions experienced by the diaspora, between a life as a cleaning lady in Paris and caring of voodoo spirits and their followers in Haiti. The film alternates between moments of humor and melancholy, without ever losing the author’s singular point of view.

Best Student Film Award goes to the film

Half Elf,by Jón Bjarki Magnússon, Iceland

This film greatly impressed us with its delicate portrait that masterfully captures the whimsical character of a man determined to see his hundredth birthday, and for whom songs and poetry constitute the fabric of his daily life. The viewer immediately sees the close connection between the filmmaker – who also acted as cinematographer and editor – and his grandparents. The film is also special in allowing us a window into the touching relationship between the two grandparents. The grandfather’s relationship to the mythical elf takes on a transcendental meaning, as he uses the figure as a means to believe in something superior or parallel to his daily life. His spirit and love of life are infectious in viewing this film.

The “Dobrivoje Pantelić”Award for the best film about indigenous culture in independent production goes to the film

Seven Symphonies of Zagros, by Perwîz Rostemî, Iran

Seven Symphonies of Zagros is a lyrical documentary, full of gorgeous scenes of countryside. It presents a timeless portrait of an artist whose flute has united members of his Kurdish community for decades. It presents the gaze of a true author and poet.

Best Television Film Award

Not issued

The International jury has also granted the following special mentions:

Special mention for the contribution to intangible cultural heritagegoes to the film

Detached, by Vladimir Krivov, Russia

For the protagonists of Detached, inhabitants of the Chukchi peninsula, reindeer herding is much more than a way of life: it is at the heart of their sense of identity and the very source of their desire to live. Through the voice of a father who, torn between tradition and modernity, would like to pass on to his son his love and knowledge of the tundra while worrying about his success at the nation's school, Vladimir Krivov immerses us in the difficulties of a local territory consumed by the loss of identity, and thus raises one of the most important questions in the current context of globalization: the future of minority societies, and with them, of the intangible cultures and environments of which they have been the immemorial guardians.

Special mention for the best ethnographic recordgoes to the film

There’s neither Horn nor Hoof left, by Vladimir Bocev, North Macedonia

Men and oxen work in the sloping forest, moving logs. The men live together in a hut, chop their wood and prepare their meals, which they share in the same dish.

They form a community of men, mostly middle-aged, who work hard.

We find them nine years later, aged but still friends. They have stopped working because the job was no longer profitable. Facing the small computer screen where they see themselves a decade earlier, they pity themselves with tenderness for their oxen, which they had to sell.

There’s neither Horn nor Hoof Left is a film shot in “direct cinema”, sober and moving. It is the result of a real ethnographic follow-up, filmed over time, respecting and listening to the characters.

From the communist era to the present day, the story of these men is a never-ending tale of exploitation. Harnessed to their work in the same way as their oxen, they have nevertheless sublimated the harshness of their lives by values of integrity and friendship. Through their eyes, Vladimir Bocev offers us an unvarnished picture of the human condition..

Special mention for cinematographygoes to the film

Princesa,by Stefania Muresu, Italy

Princesa is a stunning film. It builds a visual texture throughout its course, as it plays with all the possibilities of light, color, and the grain of the image. It is a film that stays with the viewer long after it has finished.

Special mention for soundgoes to the film

Timkat,by Ico Costa, Portugal

Ico Costa's film “Timkat” is a breathtaking visual and aural immersion into the heart of a huge collective ritual carried out each year by the Christians of Ethiopia. Its soundscape is built on a skilful crescendo of direct sounds which, intermingling street scenes, gatherings ambiences, and ritual music, which gradually leads us to the final climax, when an entire exalted crowd throws itself into the water to be baptized.

Special mention of the jurygoes to the film

Our Aotearoa, by Monica Cordero, New Zealand

Our Aotearoa is a beautiful short film with a clear vision and a clear point of view.Although it is a student film, you can feel a complete author behind the work. Through stories of three immigrants in New Zealand, each in a different animation style, the author brings up important topics in a very inventive and surprising way.

You can find more information about the films in the catalog and program section, available on this website.