This year's Main Competition Programme offers 14 carefully selected films from the United Kingdom, France, Lebanon, Argentina, Iran, Australia, USA, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Slovenia, Russia. The jury composed of Goran Bogdan (President), Bojan Vuletić, Sanja Vejnović, Ioana Uricaru and Nada Šargin will decide on awards in the categories: Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Debut and Jury Award. The best film will be awarded the Belgrade Victor.
Goran Bogdan (President)
Actor, Croatia
Goran Bogdan graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. Since 2010, he has been a permanent member of the Zagreb Youth Theatre, where he has acted in a number of plays performed around the world: Hamlet, Coco in Paris, Around the World in 80 Days, Gulliver's Travels, A Letter to Heiner Muller, The Ugly Duckling and many others. He also has a number of television and film roles, and is best known for the films: The Priest's Children (2013), These Are the Rules (2014), Our Everyday Life (2015), Ungiven (2015), Goran (2016), All the Best (2016), Transmania (2016), Agape (2017) etc. This actor is the record holder in the number of roles at the Pula Film Festival. He has also taken part in the Serbian TV series Shadows over Balkan. Bogdan played the lead role in the French-British crime series The Last Panthers (2015), and was brilliant in the critically acclaimed and popular third season of the TV series Fargo (2016). He was a member of the jury at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2017.
Sanja Vejnović
Actress, Croatia
Sanja Vejnović was born in Zagreb. She graduated Croatian Language and Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. Her acting career began in 1975, in her teens, with the role in a television film Long Journey into the White. She has acted in over 50 feature films and television series since then, playing mainly leading roles: The Falcon, The Elusive Summer of '68, High Voltage, O pokojniku sve najlepše, One Hundred Minutes of Glory, Twice Born, With Mom, The Pride of the Ratkay Family, Kud puklo da puklo, etc. She has produced five feature films and has been a casting director of many foreign films. Vejnović is the founder of the first acting agency in Croatia called Kvadar as well as the production company Fos Film. She is also the co-founder of the StudioChekhov Croatia.
Ioana Uricaru
Director, Romania
Ioana Uricaru was born and raised in Romania. She studied biology before stepping into the world of filmmaking. She graduated Film and Television from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California (USC), where she also received a Ph.D. in Critical Studies. She is the alumni of Berlinale Talents in 2008. She also participated in the Résidence de la Cinéfondation in Cannes, the Sundance Festival's Laboratory and the Film Laboratory in Turin. In 2016 Uricaru received a scholarship from the American Academy in Berlin. Her notable debut feature film Lemonade had a world premiere at the International Film Festival in Berlin in 2018 within the Panorama Programme, and is also being featured at numerous other festivals around the world. Among other awards, it won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Director. The film will have its premiere within the Focus Europe Programme at this year's FEST.
Nada Šargin
Actress, Serbia
Nada Šargin is the Principal Drama Artist of the National Theatre in Belgrade. She graduated from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, in the class of Professor Vida Ognjenović. She has performed in a large number of plays of the country's leading theatre companies, such as the National Theatre (Mileva Einstein, The Cherry Orchard, An Enemy of the People, The Chioggia Scuffles, The Marriage and Divorce of Figaro, Life is Dream, Mother Courage and Her Children, Mary Stuart, Ivanov, Electra…), Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad (The Seagull, Torquato Tasso), Yugoslav Drama Theatre (The Lower Depths, Molière - Another Life), Boško Buha Theatre, Atelje 212, Youth Theatre in Novi Sad, Joakim Vujić Theatre and other theatres. She has also played in a number of film and television productions, achieving remarkable roles in films Tomorrow Morning, Tears for Sale, Who the Fuck Is Miloš Branković?, Will Not End Here, The Woman with a Broken Nose, Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying, The Sky Above Us, Homeland and TV Series Storks Will Be Back, Folk, The Jagodić Family, Linden Street, Faiths and Conspiracies and Nemanjić Dynasty - Birth of a Kingdom. Šargin is the recipient of numerous awards.
Bojan Vuletić
Director and Screenwriter, Serbia
Bojan Vuletić is a Serbian director, born in 1977 in Belgrade, where he graduated Film Directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. For several years he worked on TV B92 where he directed TV series. He was the co-author of screenplay for the film Love and Other Crimes. His first film, Practical Guide to Belgrade with Singing and Crying, premiered at the Karlovy Vary Festival in 2011, and won several awards at world festivals. His second film, Requiem for Mrs J, had the premiere in the Panorama Programme of the 67th Berlinale. It won the award for Best Film at the Wiesbaden Festival, as well as the FIPRESCI Award at the Sofia International Film Festival. Vuletić received three awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 45th FEST and the Best Director Award at SOFEST.
