The arrival of 2014 finds us, here at altcine.com, very excited about what 2014 has in store for cinema in the Balkans. Until then, we feel the need to salute and honor 2013, an important Balkan year full of amazing films, festivals, events and awards! Let see what happened in our neighborhood in the past 12 months!
Looking back in time, it was a very productive year for the Balkan film industry with a serious presence in 2013 film festivals. Berlinale, Venice, Karlovy Vary, Thessaloniki, Pula, Transilvania to name a few of them.
Many of those films and projects became possible through two European programs, Eurimages and Media Program, making their decisions very important for the next year΄s cinematic harvest.

Child΄s Pose
Undoubtedly this year seems to confirm "Balkan cinema" as such. Many events around the globe become more interested in Balkan regional works. News and information are multiplied, the audience becomes acquainted with these indie films and some names have already entered the pantheon of movie stars.
Romania, the locomotive of our Big Balkan Train keeps going at full speed.
The excellent
Child΄s Pose by
Calin Peter Netzer is one of the most successful films of the decade, as
Romanian Film Promotion states: “The film’s opening weekend was spectacular, registering over 19.000 viewers, a record for a Romanian film in this last decade”. Child΄s Pose led the way, participating in the official selection of many festivals and winning -among others- the Golden Bear award at Βerlin Film Festival. The film is also to be Romania΄s nomination for the 86th Academy Awards.
Apart from that, leading actress
Luminita Gheorghiu was announced “The Face” of the 12th edition of Transylvania International Film Festival and received the Excellence Award. She was also a nominee for European Academy Awards in the Best Actress category. Adding another one to its award collection, Child΄s Pose producer
Ada Solomon won the Co-Production Award – Prix Eurimages at the European Academy Awards.
Moving south to
Greece,
Miss Violence by
Alexandros Avranas traveled to Mostra and received the Silver Lion Award for Best Director and the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor (Themis Panou) at the 70th Venice Film Festival. The other Greek film that made quite an impression in 2013 was
Ektoras Lygizos΄
Boy Eating the Bird΄s Food, being Greece΄s nomination for the 86th Academy Awards. Of course, Greece’s “Weird Cinema” as critics and industry people around the world like to call it, isn’t all what this country exports and
Pantelis Voulgaris’s latest
Mikra Agglia along with its reception to Greek audience and critics proves this.
Mikra AggliaPointing the map to
Croatia,
The Priest΄s Children by
Vinko Bresan is a film to mention; scoring the best Croatian film opening ever with 33,759 tickets sold in its first weekend, the
best opening since the country΄s independence 22 years ago. The film was also the only Balkan nomination for the European Academy Awards for 2013, in the Best Comedy Category. Nevertheless, Croatian Film Center decided to submit for the Academy Awards
Halima΄s Path by
Arsen Anton Ostojic. The film won 14 awards in total throughout 2013 in festivals around the world and among others the Grand Prix prize at both the International Festival of Mons in Belgium and the 19th Mediterranean Film Festival in Morocco, in which it was also voted as the best film of the festival.
Serbia also had a great year with the film
Circles by
Srđan Golubović which was the big winner of CineEast Film Festival and Cinema City Novi Sad. It has also received the Special Prize at Sundance Film Festival, the Award of the Ecumenical Jury in Berlin and many other prizes. The film was the Serbian official candidate for the upcoming Oscars.
Another big success came from neighboring
Bosnia and Herzegovina with
An Episode in the Life of the Iron Picker by
Danis Tanovic, winner of the Silver Bear and Best Actor (Nazif Mujic) as well as of the Ecumenical Jury Special Mention at the Berlinale. It is also the country΄s Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film and the only one from the Balkans that entered in the short list of nine films for the f
oreign-language Oscar.
An Episode in the Life of the Iron PickerThe other big winner of the Bulgarian awards was
Petar Popzlatev with Best Director Award for
I Am You, a film that the American audience saw at the 9th edition of New York-Bulgarian Film Festival 2013
Rok Bicek΄s
Class Enemy from
Slovenia was selected for the Critic΄s Week at the 70th Venice Film Festival making possible its nomination for the Best Foreign Film Award at the Oscars.
From
Albania came
Agon by Robert Budina, nominated for the 86th Academy Awards, a co-production with Greece, Romania and France, was shoot in 2012 with the support of Eurimages Fund.
Crossing the Bosporus Strait, in
Turkey,
Reha Erdem΄s
Jin, besides its participation at this year΄s Berninale, traveled around the world winning important awards in Brussels Film Festival and elsewhere, something that didn΄t prevent him from completing his latest
Singing Women wich presented at the Toronto Film Festival. Two other films that represent the best in Turkey΄s cinematic landscape were
The Dream of a Butterfly by Yilmaz Erdogan and Araf by Yesim Ustaoglu are two films that represent the best in Turkey΄s cinematic landscape. The first one was nominated for the 2013 Oscars and Araf for the European Film Academy Awards 2013.

Jin
For
Montenegro, 2013 was a special year indeed, as it is the first time that it submits a film,
Bad Destiny by
Darko Đurović, for the Oscars as an independent country.
Despite the fact that two films from the
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Balkan Is not Dead by
Alexandar Popovski and
Igor Ivanov Izi’s
The Piano Room were eligible for this year΄s Academy Awards, “after several hours of debate, the national commission of the Macedonian Association of Filmmakers
said it could not recommend any film for Oscar submission this year as neither of the two local contenders were "appropriate" for submission to the Academy Awards.”
Cyprus this year presented the feature film
Block 12 by
Kyriakos Tofarides, a Greek-Cypriot co-production which has won the Special Jury Award at the Cyprus Film Days Festival 2013.
Boosting an Industry
Professionals of the industry such as producers and actors had a fruitful year as well.
European Film Promotion (EFP), the international network of organizations promoting and marketing European cinema worldwide annually presents, at the Berlin International Film Festival, ten up-and-coming European actors and actresses from ten different European countries to the international press, public and industry, the
Shooting Stars. EFP also offers support and guidance to European producers during the Cannes International Film Festival, in the frame of the action
Producers on the Move. In a highly selective process, one producer per country is chosen by the respective EFP member to take part in this initiative, which has set a high standard for participation and offers various opportunities to build up business relationships.

Shooting Stars 2013
Show me your partners and I΄ll tell you who you are...
Ending this journey, we΄d like to recall all the great moments of altcine.com with more than 1183 films, interesting news and important partnerships from our region. This year΄s highlight was no other than the 2nd edition of our Online Short Film Festival for Balkan Filmmakers,
altcineAction! 2013. The festival gave young directors the chance to present their work and win substantive awards helping them in the preparation of their next film and nobody proves this better than
Asimina Proedrou, our last year΄s winner. She finished, during 2013, her second short, Red Hulk, with the production award of altcineAction! 2012. This film has already won the first prize at the two major short film international film festivals in Greece and goes ahead for the big prize at Clermont-Ferrand, on February 2014. We wish her all the best!2013 also marked altcine΄s important new partnerships with...
The
Divan Film Festival, which combines film screenings with Balkan food recipes and open discussion round tables, and its artistic director,
Marian Tutui, a top essayist and a key figure in the Balkan network.
Agron Domi and
Ilir Butka, directors of the
Albania Film Commission and
Tirana International Film Festival, one of the oldest festivals of SouthWestern Balkan, became key partners of altcine.
Also
Yoana Pavlova and the
Festivalists along with
Greg DeCuir Jr. are contributing with articles, news and essays, like
Gergana Doncheva from Sofia does; all of them, precious partners .
To quote Casablanca “this is a beginning of a beautiful friendship”.
Apart from the interest of the academia on the Balkan cinema, another hopeful message emerged from the 2nd annual Balkan Conference of Cinematographers during the Manaki Film Festival at Bitola which aimed at encouraging closer collaboration between the Balkan professionals, other than producers and directors. The conference gave us the chance to realize that the interaction between neighboring countries is the only way to survive. To mention the title of a Czech film Divided we fall!
Farewell 2013!