World Film Panorama

In the well-known programming segment, FEST will show 14 films from all corners of the globe, from the Far East to South America. The former brings us three films: Like Father, Like Son is a moving drama about the sensitive topic of children swapped at birth, by Hirozaku Koreda. In his longstanding successful career, Koreda was nominated for the Golden Palm three times and once for the Golden Lion and his last film brought him the Jury's Award and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Cannes, as well as many others. The second film is also from Japan, Backwater, while the third one comes from Hong Kong. The film Blind Detective was directed by  Johnnie To, one of the representatives of the Hong Kong new wave, which has made over 30 films of different genre and collaborated with that country's greatest movie stars.

North America has “sent” three films to FEST too: Stop the Pounding Heart, The Retrieval and The Dismantling, while South America has four. Argentinian director Santiago Loza  is extremely successful in his country, where he has won many awards, including seven prizes on the Buenos Aires Film Festival, including the latest one for the film La paz, which the Serbian audience will get to see. Chile-born director Diego Ruiz is the author of the film Igloo, Cuban director Carlos Lechuga has made the bitter-sweet comedy Melaza, and Claudia Sainte-Luce from Mexico the family comedy The Amazing Catfish.

Several interesting films come from Europe and the Middle East. Mandariinid is a a powerful and moving war drama by director Zaza Urushadze, which was awarded the prizes for best film and the award of audience on the festival in Warsaw, but also in Tallin. The film Ladder to Damascus  is the story of a girl’s spiritual struggle and her romance amid the conflict in Syria. From Iran comes  Bending the Rules, and from Iraq Before Snowfall, a coproduction with Norway. The director Hişam Zaman was born in Kurdistan, only to emigrate to Norway as a teenager. In his film, he uses autobiographical data and shows a rarely depicted reality of his native country, a journey of a boy from Iran to Norway. The film was declared Best Scandinavian Film on the Goteborg Festival and it was screened in Karlovy Vary, Warsaw and on the Tribeca, where he was awarded the prize for best photography.