October 2nd 2022

Mother’s Milk - short documentary shot during Interaction: Student Film Camp will have its premiere screening on the 65th Dok Leipzig festival of documentary and animated film

 

The short documentary Mother’s Milk, directed by Isaac Knights-Washbourn will have its world premiere in the Panorama programme of the 65th DOK Leipzig Documentary and Animation Film Festival (DOK Leipzig), taking place 17-23 of October, 2022.

Mother’s Milk is a tender meditation on motherhood and the chains that bind us together. In the hills of western Serbia, Dragica begins her workday on the farm by milking her cows. It is the journey of the milk into food that reveals her dedication to her family both past and present. Dressed in black, in the wake of her mother’s passing, Dragica battles with the weight of legacy that has been handed down to her. As she provides for loved ones a cloud of doubt hovers above her, continue in her mother’s footsteps or leave behind that which was bequeathed to her? Observing her ritualistic labour and devotion from sunrise to sunset, we are taken on a journey within the confines of her fences.

 

 

The film was directed by Isaac Knights-Washbourn, filmmaker from New Zealand currently living in Edinburgh. The film was produced by Nađa Lapčević and Dejan Petrović. The cinematographer of the film is Antonio Pozojević (Croatia), the editor is Ivana Pejak (Serbia) ad the sound designer is Eugene Pereiaslavtsev from Russia.

The film was produced by Independent FIlm Centre “Filmart” during the 16th edition of the Interaction: Student Film Camp, and the running time is 18 minutes. Interaction is a project funded by Ministry of culture and information of Republic of Serbia, Film Centre Serbia, City of Čačak and Cinnamon Films.

www.film-art.org/interaction

PRESS KIT can be found here.


September 2022

Interview with Goran Lapčević

There is still a lot of space for the development of partnerships between business sector and cultural sector


 

Goran Lapčević is Regional Director at OTP banka Srbija, Western Serbia. He graduated from University of Belgrade – Faculty of Economics. He is one of the founders of the Western Serbia Business Club.

IFC Filmart: The Western Serbia Business Club recognised the Interaction project back in 2017. Since this year, you have become partners in the Interaction 2022 project, which was supported by the Government of Switzerland as part of the Culture for Democracy programme. How did the interaction of film art and business come about? How come that you decided to enter the partnership and support the Independent Film Centre Filmart on this project?

GL: The Interaction was recognised and chosen thanks to its two qualities: you have an exceptional and successful concept of gathering teams from all over the world, and, in those couple of weeks of events, Požega comes alive with a special spirit and looks magical and worldly, in the same way as film itself is magical. Also, the dedication and passion with which your team approaches the organisation and realisation of the Interaction deserves a lot of respect, and such an approach should always be supported.

IFC Filmart: You were the initiator of the establishment and one of the founders of the Western Serbia Business Club of, and you already have several decades of experience in working with the economy of Western Serbia. How do you evaluate the Zlatibor district and the economic climate in this district? To what extent has the economy recognised the importance of connecting with the creative sector?

GL: The economy of our district is quite successful in overcoming the challenges that the first decades of the 21st century brought us. Due to their export orientation, businessmen enrich their knowledge and business management through contacts with foreign partners, and I believe that we will continue to successfully sail through the troubled waters that lie ahead of us.
As regards the connections between the economy and the creative sector, some progress has been made in recent years, but there is still a lot of room for the development of partnerships for mutual benefit and to the satisfaction of the entire local community.

IFC Filmart: What is the mission of the Business Club of Western Serbia? Who are its members and what are your plans for the future?

GL: The Business Club of Western Serbia was founded with the aim to support its members in increasing the competitiveness and profitability of their business, as well as to help the public sector, municipal and state administration to create a business environment suitable for the opening of new and the growth and development of existing businesses. The Club gathers businessmen, primarily from the Zlatibor district, who have over 1,100 employees in their companies, whose annual turnover is over EUR 65 million, and who have exported goods and services worth over EUR 37 million.
So far, it has become evident that the best investment is the investment in new knowledge and contacts, and thus the primary plan of the Club is to continue with the organisation of quality education for members and connecting its members with the entire business community, first of all in Serbia and then in the region.

IFC Filmart: What do you expect from the partnership with Filmart as part of the Interaction project?

GL: We expect that you to continue to pleasantly surprise us with new programmes, just as you did this year with the first short documentary film festival, which we believe will continue to strengthen, grow and develop. All your activities that promote Serbia through your participants and the films that are made in Užice, Požega and Čačak are also very beneficial to the business community. Just keep going!





August 28th 2022

The Interaction: short docs festival prizes awarded at the closing ceremony and also documentaries shot at this year's Interaction Camp premiered




The Interaction: short docs festival prizes awarded at the closing ceremony and also documentaries shot at this year's Interaction Camp premiered at the Požega Cinema on 23rd August.

The Interaction Best Film Award won directors Urška Djukić from Slovenia and Émilie Pigeard from France for the film Granny's Sexual Life.

From the fifteen selected films in the competition programme, a three-member international jury, consisting of renowned film professionals that have made astonishing accomplishments in the field of documentary film – Iva Radivojević (Serbia/USA), Pavel Mozhar (Germany) and Vladimir Perović (Serbia) chose the winner of the award for the Interaction Best Film Award with the following explanation:
“Engaged, daring, provocative, highly imaginative, Granny’s Sexual Life is immaculate in interweaving different elements of expression. The outstandingly crafted animations form a counterpoint to the brutal testimonies, opening a dark abyss of civil-historical dimensions. Balancing the weight of the topic with matter-of-fact voiceover delivery and tragic-comic animation language, the film creates a new space in which the experience of this centuries old tale becomes visceral. A potent combination that stays in the body and the mind. Simply excellent!”

The award to co-director Urška Djukić was presented by the representative of Sirogojno Company, the sponsor of this award. Apart from the cash award provided by Sirogojno Company, it includes a statute and diploma. The statue is created by sculptor Marko Crnobrnja. The winner thanked for the award, the exceptional explanation of the jury, and the warm reception from the audience.

Based on the votes of the audience and the audience jury, the Audience Award awarded to the film "My Uncle Tudor", the winner of the Berlin Festival 2021, directed by Moldovan director Olgia Lucovnicnova.




Also, at the closing ceremony of the festival, three short documentaries created at this year's Interaction: student film camp were shown. The participants of the 17th Interaction Camp have been filming short documentaries in Užice, Čačak and Požega under the mentorship of Israeli director Efim Graboy. The Čačak crew led by the young director Jovan Dopuđ from Serbia, shot the film Rajko’s Happiness about Rajko from Čačak, who is trying to survive in his town, while also trying to find a wife for himself. The Užice crew with director Abraham Escobedo Salas from Mexico, found inspiration for the film by meeting photographer Miloš Cvetković Cvekla and shot a film called Fall Sonata, while the Požega crew led by director Jovana Avramović shoot film Arriving Home, the introspective journey of this young director after returning to her hometown, where she tries to find fragments of past times. The same programme awaits the Belgrade audience in the Belgrade Cultural Center Hall at 9:00 p.m.

During the Interaction 2022 programme (Camp, Workshop and Festival), IFC Filmart hosted 45 participants from 25 countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Poland, Israel, Netherlands, Spain, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Lithuania, Germany, Slovakia , Switzerland, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia, France, South Africa, Moldova, Denmark, Mexico, Cuba and Serbia.




In addition to the Camp (August 8 - 24) and the Festival, from August 17 to 24, Interaction: Doc Workshop was held in Požega, in which participated 26 selected young documentarians from Germany, Slovakia, India, Brazil, Lithuania, Estonia, Argentina, Poland, Mexico, Great Britain, Slovenia, South Africa, Belgium and Serbia. Their lecturers and tutors were renowned documentary filmmakers - Rada Šešić, Vladimir Perović and Marko Grba Singh.

The Interaction 2022 programme is organised by IFC Filmart, and with the support of the Swiss Government, as part of the Culture for Democracy project, which is implemented by the Hartefact Fund, then the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, the Film Centre of Serbia, the City of Čačak, Cinnamon Films, Municipality of Požega and others partners and sponsors.


August 19th 2022

Interaction: Short Docs Festival 2022 Opened in Požega

Last night, on August 18, in the full hall of the SKC Požega Cinema, the first edition of Interaction: Short Docs Festival (I:SDF), organized by IFC Filmart from Požega was opened. The festival will be held for the next seven days, until August 24, 2022, and will present to the Požega audience 23 top-quality short documentaries within the competition and two accompanying programs - In Focus: Poland and Interscreen.




Dejan Petrović, artistic director and selector of the Interaction Festival, addressed the audience on this occasion and emphasized:
"By launching the Interaction Festival, we wish to enable authors who create short documentaries to establish communication with the audience, to show all the power of the short form, which with its experimentality and innovation significantly contributes to pushing the boundaries of documentary film. No film festival is made up of just films, which are on the program, but also its audience. We are sure that you, our audience from Požega, Čačak, Užice and the surrounding areas will know to recognize the qualities of the Festival."

After the official ceremony, the audience was presented with a specially prepared program in cooperation with the Krakow Film Foundation – In Focus: Poland. Polish documentary film, which has a very long tradition, was presented through a selection of three short documentaries: last year's winner of the Krakow Film Festival A Little Bit of Paradise (dir. Andrzej Cichocki / Poland), then The Tough (dir. Marcin Polar / Poland) and Volte (dir. by Monika Kotecka, Karolina Poryzała / Poland), documentaries that were, among others, shown at the famous Sundance Film Festival.




Over the next five evenings, the audience will have the opportunity to enjoy films in two programs - the Competition and Interscreen programme, and at the closing ceremony on August 23, the winners of the Festival will be announced and the awards will be given, as well as the films shot during this year's Interaction: Student Film Camp. A day later, the Belgrade audience will have the opportunity to watch the same programme in the Movie Theatre of the Cultural Center of Belgrade (August 24).

Interaction: Short Docs Festival strives to become a meeting place for the audience, authors and participants of other Interaction programs, a place for screening of short creative documentaries and long talks and discussions about them. As part of the Competition programme of the Festival, 15 unique, short documentaries will be shown, the authors of which have been selected and invited to show their films to the audience of the first edition of the Interaction Festival. In the past three years, these documentaries, completely different in terms of style and themes, have been noticed by audiences and juries at the most important film festivals around the world.
From the selected films for the Competition programme, a three-member international jury will choose the winner of the Interaction Best Film Award, and based on the votes of the audience, the Audience Award will also be awarded. The award for the best film will be given to the director of the film and is provided by the Sirogojno Company, while the award statue is the author's wor of the Serbian sculptor Marko Crnobrnja.

The Interaction 2022 programme is organised by IFC Filmart, and with the support of the Swiss Government, as part of the Culture for Democracy project, which is implemented by the Hartefact Fund, then the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, the Film Centre of Serbia, the City of Čačak, Cinnamon Films, Municipality of Požega and others partners and sponsors.

Festival Schedule can be found here.


August 9th 2022

Shooting of documentaries starts at the 17th Interaction Camp

With the arrival of 15 participants, students of film academies from Argentina, Great Britain, Cuba, Mexico, Israel, India, Hong Kong and Serbia, the 17th Interaction: student film camp began on 8th August, 2022. The students gathered in the Cultural Center of Belgrade and after the introductory workshop, travelled to Čačak, Užice and Požega, where they will divide into three crews and shoot three short documentaries.




The Crew in Užice is led by director Abraham Escobedo-Salas from Mexico, who recently graduated from the Master Degree program DocNomads at SZFE (Hungary), Lusófona (Portugal), and LUCA (Belgium). Nominated for the Ariel Mexican Film Academy Award. Zacatecas State Youth Award. Erasmus Mundus scholarship receipt. FONCA grant for Young Mexican National Talent. Recent winner of the Sophia Student Prize by the Portuguese Film Academy.

The director of the Čačak Crew is Jovan Dopuđ, who recently graduated from the Academy of Arts in Belgrade. He is the author of the award-winning short documentary "Marked". At the beginning of 2019, after it was shown at the ‘Human Rights Film Festival’ in Barcelona, the organisation AECID, sponsored by Spain’s Foreign Affairs, screened the film Marked in almost every country in South America, Africa, and the Middle East, with the aim of spreading awareness of the fight for human rights.

The third Crew in Požega is led by Jovana Avramović, a student of master's degree in directing at Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Avramović is from Požega and she took her first steps in the field of the film within the programme of Filmart as an organizer of Interaction ( FECI - Film Educational Centre Interaction). When she shot the short feature film "Scar" (2013), which won the Grand Prix at the 42nd Filmmaking Review of Children and Youth of Serbia and the award for the best sound. In the meantime, she completed BA in film and TV directing at the FDU in Belgrade, directed short feature films and documentaries that were screened and awarded at festivals around the world.

In addition to the three directors, the participants of this year's camp in the camera, editing, sound and production sectors are: Candelaria Gutierez (Argentina / Sweden), Guillermina Gala Chiariglione (Argentina), Ariele Granof (Israel), Siddhant Sarin (India), Violena Ampudia (Cuba), Luis Armando Sosa Gee (Mexico), Matt Part (UK), Sudarshan Sawant (India), Ognjen Vidaković (Serbia), Anđela Lazić (Serbia), Simona Đukanović (Serbia) and Katniss Tung Cheng (Hong Kong).

During the next seven days, the participants will find stories and shoot footage for their documentaries, then on August 15th they will gather in Požega, where they will edit the films until August 22nd. Film production takes place under the mentorship of the Israeli director, Efim Graboy. Support to all participating is provided by the I:SFC team and the members of the local Interaction council (Jasminka Đurić Lalović, Dušan Darijević, Zoran Filipović) in all three towns. The screening of the films made during this year's Interaction camp will be held on 23 August in the Movie Theatre Požega, followed by the announcement of the Interaction: Short Docs Festival awards. The day after, on 24 August, the films will be shown in the Belgrade Cultural Centre Movie Theatre.

During this, second phase of I:SFC, about 20 young film professionals from all over the world will participate in Interaction: Documentary Film Workshop (I:DFW), based in Požega, whose lecturers and tutors are established documentary filmmakers Rada Šešić, Vladimir Perović and Marko Grba Singh. At the same time, from 17 to 24 August, within the framework of the newly launched Interaction festival, participants of both the camp and the workshop, together with the local audience, will have the opportunity to watch the most exciting productions in the field of short documentary films, created in the previous two years.

During its sixteen-year existence, the Interaction camp has, so far, brought together more than 260 participants, i.e. students from more than 100 film schools, from more than 60 countries. As many as 53 documentaries were shot, and more than 20 awards were won at different film festivals around the world.

The Interaction 2022 programme is organised by IFC Filmart, and with the support of the Swiss Government, as part of the ‘Culture for Democracy’ project, which is implemented by the Hartefact Fund, then the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, the Film Centre of Serbia, the City of Čačak, Cinnamon Films, Municipality of Požega and others partners and sponsors.


August 3rd 2022

Interaction: Short Docs Festival programme announced

This year, along with the film camp and the workshop, the IFC Filmart is organising the first edition of the Interaction Festival, which will take place in Požega, from 17 to 23 August. The audience will be presented with 23 excellent short documentary films within the competition programme, along with two non-competitive programmes – In Focus: Poland and Interscreen.

The films for the Short Docs Festival were selected by Dejan Petrović, the artistic director and selector of the Interaction Festival.
After many years of creating and screening short documentaries within the Interaction film camp, we have noticed the audience’s interest in the short form, and also felt the authors’ passion to address us through the poetics of minimalism, and, like the eminent authors of haiku poetry, convey their approach to the world we share in a concise and succinct way. By launching the Interaction Festival, we want to provide short documentary filmmakers with an opportunity to establish communication with the audience, and to show the power of the short form in its entirety, which, with its experimentation and innovation, significantly contributes to pushing the boundaries of documentary film“, said Artistic Director Dejan Petrović.

Interaction: Short Docs Festival seeks to become a meeting place for audiences and authors, as well as participants in other Interaction programmes, a venue for the screening of creative short documentaries and participating in long conversations about them.

The Competition Programme

15 unique short documentaries by authors who were selected and invited to show their films to the audience of the first edition of the Interaction Festival, will be screened in the competition programme. Stylistically and thematically completely different, these documentaries have been noticed by the public and the jury in the past three years in most significant festivals around the world.

The audience of the Festival in Požega will have the opportunity to watch the films of the winner of the European Film Award - All Cats are Grey in the Dark (dir. Lasse Linder / Switzerland), which was proclaimed as the Best European Short Film in 2020, and My Uncle Tudor (dir. Olga Lucovnicova / Belgium, Hungary, Portugal), which won the Award for the Best Film last year, and it also won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
The competition programme for the Interaction Festival will include some of the documentaries that are candidates for this year’s European Film Award: Granny’s Sexual Life (dir. Urška Djukić, Émilie Pigeard / Slovenia, France), Love, Dad (dir. Diana Cam Van Nguyen / Czech Republic, Slovakia) and The Bayview (dir. Daniel Cook / Scotland, UK).
The audience will also have a chance to see the film The Game (dir. Roman Hodel / Switzerland), which was screened at the International Film Festival in Venice and other festivals last year, as well as Agrilogistics (dir. Gerard Ortín Castellví / Spain, UK), which was among this year’s contenders for the Golden Bear in Berlin.
Most of the films selected for this year’s Interaction were previously shown, among others, at Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America. In addition to some already mentioned films that featured in the programme of Hot Docs in previous years were Belle River (dir. Guillaume Fournier, Samuel Matteau, Yannick Nolin / Canada, USA), Naya ( dir. Sebastian Mulder / The Netherlands), Tell Me More (dir. Martyna Peszko / Poland), and Then Comes the Evening (dir. Maja Novaković / Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina), documentaries that will be presented to the Požega audience during this year’s Festival.
Short documentary fans will also be able to watch the film Ghosts of Mória (dir. Florian Elabdi, Michael Graversen / Denmark), which was shown at the leading short film festival in the world at Clermont-Ferrand, then the documentary We Have One Heart (dir. Katarzyna Warzecha / Poland), which was selected by the jury of the prestigious festival Visions du Réel, Scars (dir. Alex Anna / Canada), which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), as well as the documentary Nuisance Bear (dir. Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden / Canada), which had its international premiere at IDFA in Amsterdam, one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world.



In Focus: Poland

In Focus: Poland is an additional non-competitive programme of the Interaction Festival which is realised in cooperation with the Krakow Film Foundation, one of the most significant film institutions in Poland, which organises the famous Krakow Film Festival, and also promotes Polish films worldwide. Polish documentary film, which has a long tradition, will be presented through three short documentaries. At the Opening Ceremony of the Interaction Festival, on 17 August 2022, the audience will have a chance to watch: the last year’s winner of the Krakow Film Festival A Little Bit of Paradise (dir. Andrzej Cichocki / Poland), The Tough (dir. Marcin Polar / Poland) and Volte (dir. Monika Kotecka, Karolina Poryzała / Poland), documentaries which, among others, also featured at the famous Sundance Film Festival.

Interscreen programme

As part of the Interscreen programme, five selected short documentaries of this year’s camp and workshop participants will be shown to their colleagues and the audience of the festival: Where is My Red Tie (Ananthakrishnan Baburajendran Pillai / Hungary, Italy, India), Neverland (Violena Ampudia / Cuba), Marked (Jovan Dopuđ / Serbia), Between Summers (Anja Koprivšek / Croatia), which had its premiere at the International Short Documentary Film Festival - Doclisboa, and Mahalle’s School – Family Going Live (Akshay Ingle / India), which was shown at last year’s IDFA.

The Festival Jury

The three-member international jury will select the winner of the Award for Best Film of the Festival among all selected films for the competition programme, and the Audience Award will be awarded on the basis of the audience votes. Interaction Best Film Award will be given to the director of the film and, apart from the statute and diploma, includes a cash award provided by Sirogojno Company. The statue is designed and created by sculptor Marko Crnobrnja.

The Interaction 2022 programme is organised by IFC Filmart, and with the support of the Swiss Government, as part of the ‘Culture for Democracy’ project, which is implemented by the Hartefact Fund, then the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, the Film Centre of Serbia, the City of Čačak, Cinnamon Films, Municipality of Požega and others partners and sponsors.


27.07.2022.

Interaction 2022: Introducing the Doc Workshop experts and participants – 10th edition

In this year’s Interaction programme, the 10th edition of the Interaction: Doc Workshop will be held along with the 17th edition of the Student Film Camp and the 1st edition of Short Docs Festival. The Workshop will be organised in Požega (Western Serbia) from 17 to 24 August 2022. Participants in the Workshop – 27 young filmmakers from all around the world – will have the opportunity to improve their knowledge and skills in making creative documentary films through lectures, panel discussions, as well as to develop their own documentaries through consultations with tutors and sessions with other participants.

After a two-year break, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Filmart is now continuing with the organisation and realisation of this educational programme, which was launched in 2011, under the name the Interdoc - International Documentary Masterclass. The tenth edition, in addition to the change in the name of the programme (Interaction: Doc Workshop), also brings numerous novelties in the programme’s content. Huge interest in this year's Workshop resulted with the remarkable number of applications from excellent candidates and 27 selected young documentarians from Germany, Slovakia, India, Brazil, Lithuania, Estonia, Argentina, Poland, Mexico, Great Britain, Slovenia, South Africa, Belgium and Serbia will take part in the workshop.

As before, within the series of Lectures, participants will have the opportunity to meet our experts, excellent documentarians, and, together with them, discover various aspects of creative documentary film. This year, it will be Rada Šešić, the programmer of numerous festivals (IDFA, Sarajevo Film Festival, etc.), lecturer and film director, and Vladimir Perović, lecturer and documentary filmmaker, whose films have been recognised and noted at the most important festivals in the world, who will share their experience with workshop participants.

The Doc in Progress programme is a new segment of the Workshop, which implies the participation of six participants whose projects have been selected for development, and who will develop their projects through individual and group consultations with tutors. In addition to lecturers Rada Šešić and Vladimir Perović, the team of tutors of the Doc in Progress programme will be joined by Marko Grba Singh, the director and artistic director of the Beldocs festival. The selected projects for development, along with Doc in Progress programme are: Scanning you (dir. Ananthakrishnan Baburajendran Pillai / Belgium, India, Italy); Jhama - Floating Bricks (dir. Alvina Joshi / India); Anthropos (dir. Miguel Ángel Sánchez / Mexico); Kunchok (dir. Ashok Meena / India); The Island of the Colourblind (dir. Sanne De Wilde / Belgium, Netherlands) and Flowering / working title / (dir. Ariane Doehring / Netherlands, Germany, Kenia).

During the Workshop, there will be a Panel programme with the subject ‘The Power of Short Form in Documentary Film’, organised in cooperation with Beldocs – the International Documentary Film Festival. Panel speakers will include Jelena Maksimović, film editor and director, assistant professor at the FMK in Belgrade, Digital Arts Department, and Andrijana Stojković, director and documentary film professor at the FDA in Belgrade, with Marko Grba Singh, director and artistic director of Beldocs Festival, as the panel moderator. The panel will be organised as a public event on 21st August at the Movie Theatre in Požega.



During their stay in Požega, participants can benefit from the opportunity to meet and connect with participants in other Interaction programmes (Camp and Festival), as well as guests and experts, through participation in joint programmes, such as the programme Speed Meeting – twenty-minute ’one-to-one’ conversations aimed at exchanging ideas, discussing their own projects or establishing networking arrangements and potential future cooperation.
During the Workshop, participants will also have the opportunity to attend screenings of excellent short documentaries within Interaction: Short Docs Festival, as well as to participate in Q&As with authors.

To date, 128 participants from 46 countries have attended this educational programme, with distinguished lecturers such as leading directors from Serbia and the region – Želimir Žilnik, Vladimir Perović, Dragan Elčić, Nebojša Slijepčević and Mladen Matičević.


July 18th 2022

Interaction 2022: Introducing the camp participants – 17th edition

The 17th edition of Interaction: Student Film Camp (I:SFC) will take place from 8 to 24 August 2022, gathering together fifteen students of different film schools from different parts of the world. They will be shooting three short documentary films in the region of Western Serbia, produced and organised by the Independent Film Centre ‘Filmart’. All the visiting students (of directing, cinematography, editing, sound design and production) will first gather in Belgrade, on 8 August, for an introductory workshop in the Cultural Centre of Belgrade. After that, as part of the first, seven-day phase of I:SFC, they will be divided into three crews and start shooting their short documentaries in Čačak, Užice and Požega.

The competition for participation in the 17th edition of I:SFC was announced on 5 April and lasted till 10 May 2022, and, during that period, as many as 108 applications from 39 countries were received. The members of the selection committee - alumni of the Interaction camp: Pablo Radice (director from Argentina), Dorota Roś (film editor and director from Poland) and Stefan Krasić (director from Serbia) have selected 15 participants from different countries and continents: Argentina, UK, Cuba, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Hong Kong and Serbia, as well as from different film schools: Abraham Escobedo Salas (Mexico), Jovana Avramović (Serbia), Jovan Dopuđ (Serbia), Candelaria Gutierrez (Argentina/Sweden), Guillermina Gala Chiariglione (Argentina), Riskya Duavania Prihardini (Indonesia), Siddhant Sarin (India), Violena Ampudia (Cuba), Luis Armando Sosa Gil (Mexico), Matt Part (UK), Sudarshan Sawant (India), Ognjen Vidaković (Serbia), Anđela Lazić (Serbia), Simona Đukanović (Serbia) and Katniss Tung Cheng (Hong Kong).

Production of short documentaries within the Interaction camp is a great opportunity for all participants to exchange their experience and improve their knowledge. Film production takes place under the mentorship of the Israeli director, Efim Graboy , an alumni of Interaction, whose short documentary film, Valley of the Rulers (filmed during his participation at Interaction), was nominated for the prestigious IDA Award. Full support to all participating students of film schools in all stages of pre-production and production is provided by the I:SFC team, primarily the executive producer - Predrag Živković, the local production coordinators (Nikolina Milić, Jovana Jevremović and Filip Stokić) and the members of the local Interaction council (Jasminka Đurić Lalović, Dušan Darijević, Zoran Filipović) in all three cities: Čačak, Požega and Užice.

After filming, the three camp crews will all gather on 17 August in Požega, where they will be engaged in the editing of their films (image and sound post-production) until 22 August. During this, second phase of I:SFC, about 20 young film professionals from all over the world will participate in Interaction: Documentary Film Workshop (I:DFW), based in Požega, whose lecturers and tutors are established documentary filmmakers Rada Šešić, Vladimir Perović and Marko Grba Singh.
At the same time, from 17 to 24 August, within the framework of the newly launched Interaction festival, participants of both the camp and the workshop, together with the local audience, will have the opportunity to watch the most exciting productions in the field of short documentary films, created in the previous two years.

The premiere of the films made during this year's Interaction camp will be held on 23 August in the cinema of Požega, followed by the announcement of the Interaction festival awards. The day after, on 24 August, the films will be shown in the Belgrade Cultural Centre Movie Theatre.



During its sixteen-year existence, the Interaction camp has, so far, brought together more than 260 participants, i.e. students from more than 100 film schools, from more than 60 countries. As many as 53 documentaries were shot, and more than 20 awards were won at different film festivals around the world.

The 17th edition of Interaction: Student Film Camp is organised by the IFC ‘Filmart’, with the support of the Swiss Government, as part of the ‘Culture for Democracy’ project, which is implemented by the Hartefact Fund, then the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia, the Film Centre of Serbia, the City of Čačak, Cinnamon Films, Municipality of Požega and others partners and sponsors.


July 4th 2022

INTERACTION 2022 – CAMP, WORKSHOP AND FESTIVAL

This August, documentary filmmakers from different parts of the world will gather at this year's edition of INTERACTION, which is organized by the Independent Film Centre Filmart.

The specificity of this year's Interaction is that, in addition to the previously established two programs − the student film camp (I: SFC) and the documentary workshop (I: DW), for the first time Interaction: Short Docs Festival (I: SDF) will also be held, as the third programme unit.


Interaction: Student Film Camp (August, 8th – 24th) is a programme that marks its seventeenth edition this year, and within which 15 students of film academies from all over the world will participate in the production of three short documentaries, which will be filmed in Užice, Čačak and Požega. The camp has been realising since 2006, with the aim of promoting short documentary films among students of film academies and encouraging the exchange of knowledge and experience through work in multinational teams. During the sixteen-year realisation of the camp, more than 260 participants from over 60 countries, students from more than 100 film academies have participated in the programme, 53 documentaries have been made and over 20 awards won at film festivals around the world. A special success was achieved by the film Valley of the Rulers, directed by Israeli director Efim Graboy (this year's Interaction Camp mentor), which was nominated for the best short documentary film by the prestigious International Documentary Association (IDA) in 2019.

Interaction: Doc Workshop (August, 17th – 24th) is an intensive, seven-day programme that include lectures, panel discussions, consultations with tutors and other participants, as well as the development of six selected most successful projects of workshop participants within the Doc in Progress programme. The lecturers of this year's workshop are documentarians with many years of international experience − Rada Šešić and Vladimir Perović, who together with director Marko Grba Singh, will also be tutors within the Doc in Progress programme.
This educational program was launched in 2011 under the name Interdoc International Documentary Masterclass and to date 128 participants from 46 countries have attended this program, whose lecturers were prominent documentary filmmakers from Serbia and the region − Želimir Žilnik, Vladimir Perović, Dragan Elčić, Nebojša Slijepčević and Mladen Matičević.

This year, Interaction: Short Docs Festival will be held from August 17th to 24th, in the Požega Cinema Theatre. The festival will show the participants and the audience the most exciting works in the field of short documentary films that were produced in the previous two years. The artistic director and programmer of this year's edition of the festival is director Dejan Petrović, founder and manager of Interaction. The festival consists of a competition programme and two non–competitive programmes − In Focus: Poland and Interscreen.
Interaction Festival strives to become a meeting place for the audience and authors, a place for showing short creative documentaries and long conversations about them.

IVA.lab programme (August, 17th – 24th) − in addition to the previously mentioned programmes in the field of documentary film, this year Filmart will also implement a residency programme for the production of video art IVA.lab, which will host four visual artists - Saša Tatić, Mila Panić, Jelena Prljević and Miloš Bojović.

This year's programs are supported by the Swiss government, as part of the "Culture for Democracy" project, which is implemented by the Hartefact Fund, the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, the Film Center of Serbia, the City of Čačak and the Municipality of Požega.