Zana Online – Kosovo’s Entry for 2020 Oscars Best International Feature
From SEEfest 2020 lineup: ZANA is now available online
We are proud to present online the first of the 12 features in this year’s competition: ZANA, a remarkable debut by filmmaker Antoneta Kastrati, about a Kosovar woman’s struggles to reconcile the expectations of motherhood with a legacy of wartime brutality. Actress Adriana Matoshi superbly portrays the anguish and heartbreak of her post-war life, haunted by her long-suppressed past and pressured by family to seek treatment from mystical healers for her infertility.
The online viewing is made possible by our distribution partner, Synergetic, which has already acquired the U.S. rights for the film. Watch this great movie, beautifully lensed by cinematographer Sevdije Kastrati, director’s sister, whose previous work includes ‘The Marriage,’ screened at SEEfest 2018. ZANA was also Kosovo’s Oscar submission.
Watch ZANA in the virtual screening room.
A whole new film calendar in 2021
Most if not all major entertainment industry dates in the U.S. are under review. Starting with the Oscars announcement about extended eligibility period and likely new date for the ceremony in April instead of February, many festivals, awards shows, trade events and conferences will also adjust their 2021 calendars.
New podcast for documentary filmmakers: WHAT’S UP WITH DOCS?
Check out this new podcast about all things of interest for documentary filmmakers. Hosted by long-time SEEfest Accelerator mentor and advisor, Toni Bell, and produced by her IDA colleague Ranell Shubert, the podcast launched with a conversation featuring Tracy Rector, Seattle, WA – based Choctaw/Seminole filmmaker, and co-founder of Longhouse Media, an indigenous media arts organization, home of the nationally acclaimed program Native Lens. Congrats!
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FRIENDS OF SEEFEST
SEEfest program and activities are supported, in part, by the California Arts Council, a state agency; Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; and by an Arts Grant from the City of West Hollywood. Special thanks to ELMA, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for their continued support of our programs.
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SEEfest at 15: Whose is this song?
Warning: singing can be a dangerous business! Ever since we took the road trip with Bulgarian filmmaker Adela Peeva in 2006 with her iconic film, it has been a non-stop movie travel through competing histories, similar yet antagonistic cultures, always peppered with characteristic black humor and idiosyncratic music. The Balkan Sound entertained our audiences through many more music and ethnomusic documentaries throughout SEEfest’s decade and a half.
Whose is this song? was our first opening film in 2006
And it all began with Whose is this song? in 2006, at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, our original home where SEEfest was welcomed and nurtured by programmer Margit Kleinman and media manager Stefan Kloo.
Nicholas Wood wrote about the film in the International Herald Tribune and mentioned some interesting details.
“The film does not attempt to define where the song originally came from, although Peeva said she was given numerous differing explanations, including the possibility that it had been introduced by soldiers from Scotland who were based in Turkey during the Crimean War.
In Greece it is known as “Apo Xeno Eopo,” or “From a foreign land,” and in Turkey it is called “Uskudar,” after the region of Istanbul.
The Turkish version was the subject of a film, “Katip” (The Clerk), directed by Ulku Erakalin in the 1960s, and the singer and actress Eartha Kitt recorded a version of the song, also called “Uskudar,” in the 1970s.”
Whose is this song? is available in the U.S. thanks to DER, Documentary Educational Resources collection in Watertown, Massachusetts. Check it out! It’s well worth it, and still very much relevant.
Whose is this song?
70 min, 2003
in Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek, Albanian, and Bosnian
with English subtitles
About the South East European Film Festival (SEEfest)
SEEfest presents cinematic and cultural diversity of South East Europe to American audiences and creates cultural connections through films, literary and art talks, retrospectives, and community events. The 15th festival will take place from April 29 to May 6, 2020.
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