The new Beldocs, the Belgrade International Feature Documentary Festival, opened on April 7 with the world premiere of Goodbye, How Are You’, the new film by Serbian film-maker Boris Mitic, best known for his 2003 festival hit Pretty Dyana. James Marsh’s Oscar winner Man on Wire followed. The festival wraps on April 13 with awards in the regional and international competitions. Organised by independent production and distribution company Around The World, headed by producer Mladen Vusurovic, the festival didn’t receive any funding from the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor from the Secretariat of Culture of the City of Belgrade. Both bodies regularly co-finance film festivals in Serbia, including the recent Belgrade Festival of Short and Documentary Film. ‘They told us we were an unknown event,’ says Vusurovic. ‘We only asked for 4,000 Euros and we are bringing films such as Man On Wire, Drifter and Maverick Mother to Belgrade audiences. We did not even manage to get any sponsors, the whole budget comes from private savings and two theatres are our partners who contributed about 5% of the budget. But we are completely independent now and we are happy about that.’In addition to the titles Vusurovic mentions, there are 15 films in the international competition and 11 in the regional competition, which includes films from former Yugoslavia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria. Serbia has been lacking a feature documentary festival since the breakdown of former Yugoslavia in 1991. Beldocs fills an empty place at the regional festival circuit, after the most important documentary event in former Yugoslavia ZagrebDox (end of February) and Ljubljana International Documentary Film Festival (last week of March).

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