Golden Bear winner, Israeli Academy Award nominee, Best screenplay winner from Venice, cinema on the beach and a film tour all over Dalmatia are just a few of the many surprises of the 5th Mediterranean Film Festival Split, which will be held from June 2nd – 9th in Zlatna Vrata (Golden Gate) cinema and open-air cinema Bačvice.
-We'll be working with already tried and accepted recipe, FMFS will bring you the best films from the Mediterranean region and will screen 50 full-length and short films in several different programs- said the festival’s director Alen Munitić on today's presentation in „Villa Rossina“.
*Croatian premieres
Then he presented a part of the FMFS program:
- We are very happy our fifth edition has Croatian premieres of Cesar must die and Footnote. We are the first ones to bring you the story of prisoners preparing a play and for which brothers Taviani won the Golden Bear award in Berlin. Footnote is the Academy Award Nominee from Israel in the best Foreign Language Film category and it explores the relationship between father and son who are both experts in the same field and become rivals.
Yorgos Lanthimos, whose film Dogtooth won our award for best full-feature film in 2010 is also returning to the festival. We are proud to say he agreed to come to Split and present his new film Alps that won the award for best screenplay in Venice. We will be honored to have the most influential director of the new Greek film wave as our guest.
The fifth festival will be opened with the film Where do We Go Now by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, a comedy about the lives of Muslims and Christians in a small Lebanese village. Her film Caramel was screened on our first festival and was the first sold out screening.
*Croatian documentaries
Croatian documentaries Maria's own directed by Željka Sukova, Family Meals by Dana Budisavljević, Hills Village 21 000 Split by Silvijo Mirošćenko and Blockage by Igor Bezinović will have their Split premieres on our festival.
- We are happy that each year young Croatian directors have a chance to show their films in Split and we are especially pleased that all the directors will be there to present their films.
The complete program, the exact screening schedule and guests will be presented a week before the festival and the night before the opening (June 1st) there is a special surprise for citizens of Split.
*Cinema on Bačvice beach
Festival director announced: For out fifth birthday we are organizing a free film screening on Bačvice beach as a present to our audience for supporting us all these years. The screen will be on the sand by the sea and the audience will watch the film on beach towels, deck chairs and walls surrounding the beach. The screening will be held a day before the festival opening. We would like to thank Mr. Unković, caffe bar Žbirac and Villa Rossina where we'll hang out after the screening.
*FMFS tour
The biggest news this year is that festival is not over when the curtain drops and when awards are given. The festival will tour Dalmatia for the whole summer. Goran Akrap, festival's producer and coordinator of the tour presented the project called Kino Mediteran:
After two years of planning project Kino Mediteran will finally start after the festival in Split and will tour Dalmatia. We hope to become a regular guest of Dalmatian towns. During three days we will screen 3 full-feature films from this year's program and a part of the popular short film program. Our goal is to give open-air cinemas their old popularity from the times they were the centers of cultural life. This year we will visit Makarska, Imotski, Vrgorac, Sinj, Bol, Stari Grad, Hvar, Vis, Komiža, Blato and Korčula. We would like to thank these towns for their support and cooperation and for helping us organizing this project.
More information about the festival can be found on the website www.fmfs.hr and the competition is opened for everyone who would like to volunteer on this year's festival by 15th May.
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