The 2018 Küstendorf International Film and Music Festival is coming in January and we are now open for film submissions.

Our Competition Programme showcases short films and is open to filmmakers around the world. The only limit is runtime. As long as your film is under 45 minutes, fill in the application form, include a streaming link and send it to kustendorffestival@gmail.com.

Here is the application form.

Selected films will compete for Festival prizes and their authors will be invited to take part in Festival programmes from 15 to 21 January.

Submission deadline is 1 December 2017.

The final day of the Tenth International Film and Music Festival Küstendorf wrapped up with a closing ceremony held at the Damned Yard theatre in Mećavnik.

Folklore ensemble Svetozar Marković from Kragujevac opened the ceremony with their performance.

Professor Emir Kusturica then presented the diplomas to the participants of the Festival. The juries were then welcomed on stage to present the Festival awards – Golden, Silver and Bronze Eggs and Vilko Filač Award.

Professor Emir Kusturica introduced a new award at the Festival – Award for Most Poetic Film, which went to the Bulgarian director Nikolay Todorov for the film Before I Sleep. He also mentioned two other films from the competition programme that left a very strong impression on him – Freeze by Nelicia Low and Frontier, Bloody Frontier by Saša Karanović.

Nikola Ležaić, jury member, first awarded the Special Jury Award to the film The Silence by Ali Asgari and Farnoosh Samadi.

Vilko Filač Award for best cinematography, decided by Michel Amathieu and István Borbás, was given to Andrei Maika for the film The First. In his reasoning behind the award, István Borbás said that this was “a film where the cinematography gives the best harmony between visuals and the message of the film. A film which has visual poetry. A work that dispenses of artificial attitudes and shows very strong technical knowledge.”

Finally, the Festival jury, including Geling Yan, jury president, and Christian Valsamidis and Nikola Ležaić as members, awarded the Golden, Silver and Bronze Eggs. Nikola Ležaić also called the name of the Bronze Egg winner – Matteo Gariglio for En la Boca, saying that it was “always playing on the thin line between fiction and documentary, with an incredible attention to detail.”

Geling Yan, jury president, awarded Silver Egg to Tone Ottille for Lulu IRL, saying that “its success lies in depicting the lonely and defiant heart of a young girl hunting in an extra dimension of reality, the Internet, for love and sympathy that our three-dimensional universe has failed to produce.

The Golden Egg went to Michael Alalu for The Thorn, and the jury president said that “with its flawless narration and unique character development, The Thorn makes it possible for us to understand the absurdity and beauty of human feelings.”

Finally, Professor Emir Kusturica announced the closing of the Festival.

see more

On the last night of screenings within the Competition Programme, the audience saw the remaining films by young filmmakers. Before the screening, the young directors were greeted by the audience and welcomed on stage.

Members of the jury for the Vilko Filač Award and Festival awards jury were also greeted by the audience.

Six films were shown: Co-Drivers directed by Ognjen Isailović, Adrift, Afloat directed by Jo Jo Lam, Before I Sleep directed by Nikolay Todorov, Paparuda directed by Lucia Lupu, Frontier, Bloody Frontier directed by Saša Karanović, and And The Whole Sky Fit In The Dead Cow’s Eye directed by Francisca Allegria.

Zhang Yang, Chinese film director and screenwriter, arrived on the fourth day of the Festival. He was welcomed with the traditional offering of bread, salt and honey brandy.

This is the director’s first time at Küstendorf. His latest film, Soul on a String, which premiered in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival 2016 and received the Best Cinematography award, will be screened as part of the Contemporary Trends Programme.

see more

After the screening of Antti Jokinen’s Flowers of Evil, the Finnish director had a talk with the young filmmakers in the Damned Yard Theatre.

Jokinen said that the his country was both a welfare state and a country with a very high unemployment rate among the young people. This is the social setting of the film.

He said all the young actors in the cast of Flowers of Evil were non-professional actors and that he had chosen them at a casting among more than 500 young people, to accurately portray life in the suburbs of Helsinki. Jokinen said it was important for him to have the cast before writing the script, because as he writes he looks at the photos of the actors on his wall. He wrote Flowers of Evil having his eye on a young rap artist from Helsinki for the role of Juno.

Talking about the difference between working with professional and non-professional actors, Antti Jokinen said that professionals could be given tasks. On the other hand, non-professional actors act as themselves while saying the lines he had written. This is why he gave non-professional actors parts that matched their personalities.

Answering the question about the music in the film, Jokinen said that the punk band Exploited let him to use the music free of charge, asking for just a case of Finnish beer.

Talking about filming with digital technology, Jokinen said that it made two things possible – today, anyone can make a film and everyone can see that it is not easy to make a good film. So, owing to digital technology, the role of the director became more prominent.

As for the editing of his film, Jokinen said that the fast change of short shots made Flowers of Evil stand out from his other films, because he made a film about hysteria, a film which is at the same time a dystopia and a commentary on the state of the Finnish society.

see more here