PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED FOR THIS YEAR’S INTERACTION FESTIVAL
Interaction: Short Docs Festival will take place in Požega from 18 to 24 August, bringing together filmmakers from different generations – from established documentary directors with internationally recognised bodies of work to emerging filmmakers and film school students. Regardless of their level of experience, each brings a distinctive voice and a personal way of observing and shaping reality through documentary film.
This year’s selection will be presented across three programme sections: the Competition Programme and two non-competition programmes – In Focus and Interscreen.
Competition Programme
The Competition Programme features fifteen short documentaries selected by programmers Luka Papić and Dejan Petrović. Drawing on personal experiences, the filmmakers address some of today’s pressing social issues – from war, political repression, surveillance and police violence to the consequences of climate change. Women, the body, love and the need for intimacy and belonging hold a prominent place in the selection, while parenthood, femicide, loneliness, ageing and death form another important thematic strand.
Films in this year’s selection have been screened, and in some cases awarded, at some of the world’s leading film festivals, including Berlinale, IDFA, CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, Hot Docs, DOK Leipzig, Sheffield DocFest and Clermont-Ferrand.
The Closing Ceremony and awards presentation will take place in Požega on 24 August, followed by a screening of the winning films. The festival will present the Best Film Award, the Youth Jury Award, decided by participants of the Interaction: Teen Doc Workshop, and the Audience Award, presented to the film receiving the highest audience score.
The Best Film Award is presented to the film’s director and includes a statuette designed by renowned sculptor Marko Crnobrnja, as well as a cash prize provided by the Festival’s partner, Sirogojno Company.
Explore this year’s Competition Programme.
In Focus Programme: Želimir Žilnik
This year’s In Focus programme is dedicated to Želimir Žilnik, one of the most significant Yugoslav and Serbian filmmakers and a key figure of the Yugoslav Black Wave. The Interaction Festival will open on 18 August with a screening of his short documentary films.
The programme presents five films made between 1968 and 1975. The Unemployed looks at unemployment and the position of workers, while June Turmoil offers a direct record of the 1968 student protests. Black Film confronts homelessness and the question of social responsibility, while House Orders and Inventory, both made in Germany in 1975 during Žilnik’s “German period”, explore the everyday lives and social position of migrant workers.
Since his earliest films, Žilnik has addressed social and political issues, particularly labour, migration, student protests, homelessness and social exclusion. More than half a century later, these early documentaries remain strikingly relevant. Screening them at the opening of this year’s Interaction Festival is therefore not only a look back at an important chapter in documentary film history and a tribute to the filmmaker, but also an opportunity to reconsider, from today’s perspective, questions that remain part of our everyday lives.
Explore the films in this year’s In Focus programme.
Interscreen Programme
Interscreen is the Festival’s non-competition programme presenting works by participants of Interaction’s Camp and Doc Workshop programmes. This year, two short documentaries will be screened, exploring the relationship between tradition and personal freedom, identity and family expectations, as well as motherhood and the search for a home.