13th Annual South East European Film Festival Full Program Line-Up
About the South East European Film Festival (SEEfest):
Not a Cine-Fan yet? Join SEEfest today!
Become a Cine-Fan and engage with other SEEfest members, make new friends and join the journey of cinematic and cultural discovery. Cine-Fan Members receive a 20% discount on Festival Passes and Tickets.
Annual General Membership is $55. Student membership is $30. All are welcome! Click here to join today. THANK YOU!
SEEfest’s Passport to Trieste Festival Opens on April 26th, 2018
SEEfest’s Passport to Trieste Takes Angelenos on a Cinematic Journey to South East Europe
The 13th annual South East European Film Festival (SEEfest), April 26 – May 3, brings a large selection of feature, documentaries and short films to the Writers Guild Theater, Laemmle Music Hall and West Hollywood Council Chambers/Library campus, highlighting a bygone era of 100 years ago centered around Trieste, once a major port of the Habsburg empire and a magnet for artists like Rilke and Joyce.
As a crossroads between Austrian, Italian, Slavic and Jewish cultures on the peripheries of Habsburg Austria, modern Italy, and the Balkan Peninsula, Trieste has been defined by its proximity to borders erased and redrawn with unusual frequency.
Contested and contemplated by poets, scholars, novelists, and filmmakers, it has been depicted as a microcosm of plurinational civility, an uncanny non-place or as a site of mystery and political intrigue, in works of narrative fiction and non-fiction that blur the line between myth and reality.
SEEfest invites you to reflect on this city as a metaphor for the ironies, uncertainties and possibilities that characterize not only the South East European experience, but many facets of our global age; shifting and disappearing borders, fervent nationalisms, placeless places and the multiplicity of identities that are confluent, and sometimes conflicting, in us all.
Festival visitors will be given the facsimile of a passport book and receive a stamp at each event they attend during the program, with prizes awaiting those completing the entire journey.
Irina Maleeva presents “Gypsy in my Soul”
Pre-festival events include musical theater Gypsy in My Soul starring Irina Maleeva on April 6, 7:30 PM at the WACO Theater Center in North Hollywood, featuring memorable songs and dances from the Gypsy musical tradition. Tickets for this one-night-only show are available on Eventbrite.
Trieste Literary Salon is on April 17 at 7 PM at the West Hollywood Council Chambers with UCLA professor Thomas Harrison, author of “1910” in conversation with John Agnew, distinguished professor of Political Geography; Tzvi Rafael Rivlin, Trieste cultural scholar from Montreal, Quebec; Nina Bjekovic, PhD candidate in Italian studies researching the literature of prominent authors of the Slovene minority in Northern Italy; and moderator MariaCristina Heller, Trieste-born actress and journalist.
RSVP is required for the Trieste Literary Salon. Tickets are free.
Featured Films
Highlights of the festival include documentary film Trieste, Yugoslavia by Alessio Bozzer about the 1970-1990 shopping bonanza when Yugoslavs traveled to Trieste in droves to buy jeans and other coveted Western garments; The Nearest Elsewhere. A Journey to Slovenia, by Elisabetta Sgarbi, traveling to Trieste’s next-door neighbor Slovenia.
Men Don’t Cry is the debut feature by Bosnian filmmaker Alen Drljevic about war veterans in a group therapy for PTSD; Bulgarian WWI satire Enemies by Svetislav Ovcharov; The Miner from Slovenia, Hanna Slak’s thriller-like exploration of dark secrets from the past; Twice Upon a Time animated delight about a king with a split personality by the multi-talented Vojin Vasovic; and documentary The Other Side of Everything, portrait of a country by Mila Turajlic (Cinema Komunisto), winner of the top award at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.
The specific brand of humor and zest for life against all odds make these stories universal, transcending language and borders. They open doors into another experience altogether and by taking us on a journey halfway across the globe help us to better understand challenges in our own backyard.
Festival passes, and tickets to pre-festival events are available on https://seefest18.eventbrite.
About the South East European Film Festival (SEEfest)
SEEfest presents the cinematic and cultural diversity of South East Europe to American audiences and creates cultural connections through films, artistic and social events. It was founded in 2006 by Vera Mijojlić, long-time film critic, and cultural entrepreneur.
Not a Cine-Fan yet? Join SEEfest today!
Become a Cine-Fan and engage with other SEEfest members, make new friends and join the journey of cinematic and cultural discovery. Cine-Fan Members receive a 20% discount on Festival Passes and Tickets.
Annual General Membership is $55. Student membership is $30. All are welcome! Click here to join today. THANK YOU!
The 13th Edition of SEEfest kicks off on April 26, 2018!
Meet Festival Programmers June 3rd, Columbia College Hollywood
Our friends from the Valley Film Festival have organized a Panel with festival programmers on Saturday, 6/3. This event is FREE to attend. Tickets are available at FilmFreeway. Location: Columbia College Hollywood, 18618 Oxnard Street, Los Angeles, California 91356. Moderator: Ken Storer, Writer, Law and Order, Special Victims Unit.
Dances with Films (@DancesWithFilms) June 1-11, 2017 @ TCL, Hollywood
DTLA Film Festival (@dtlaff) September 21-30, 2017 @ Regal Cinemas, Downtown LA
Hollywood Shorts (@hollywoodshorts) Monthly @ The Attic, Hollywood
LA Film Festival (@filmindependent) June 14-22, 2017 @ ArcLight Cinemas, Culver City
SEE Fest (@seefilmla) April 2018 @ Various Venues (West Hollywood & Beverly Hills)
The Valley Film Festival (@ValleyFilmFest) October 25-29, 2017 @ Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood
Schedule:
5:00pm – Network with peers & colleagues over complimentary tea, coffee, and green drinks from our generous sponsors:
Pete’s Coffee in Tarzana – @PeetsCoffee
David’s Tea in Woodland Hills – @davidstea
Troy Casey in Los Angeles – @Mr.Healthnut
5:30pm – Panel Discussion on Programming + Screening of Selected Shorts
7:30pm – More networking over pizza, courtesy of The Valley Film Festival (@valleyfilmfest), and salad donated by Stonefire Grill (@stonefiregrill)
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Whether you are a professional in the film industry, a student of the arts, or a lover of foreign films, SEEfest is your cultural hub.
Become a Cine-Fan and engage with other SEEfest members, make new friends and join the journey of cinematic and cultural discovery.
Annual General Membership is $55. Student membership is $30. Click here to join today.
On “Defending Cinema in Los Angeles”, the Manifesto of Locarno in L.A.
Los Angeles, 22 April 2017 — Opening night of the inaugural Locarno in Los Angeles film festival at Downtown Independent needs to be recognized for its bold effort to rescue the city from the non-stop, wall-to-wall, suffocating onslaught of ever more commercial glut. We desperately need a revolution of our mental eating habits saturated with the sugary drinks of 80% CGI sprinkled with faux sentimentality that treats us as unsuspecting kindergarteners, an easy prey for inducing a life-long addiction to nonsense.
Los Angeles is at the cutting edge of the 21st century artistic frontier in many creative disciplines and we deserve better in cinema too. This is not a question of “liking” a film. It is healthy to dislike, to critique, to shout at the programmer who put you through the rigmarole of watching “slow film” that is so opaque that it makes you angry – and that provokes you to express your opinion and engage in a heated discussion with your next-seat neighbor, perhaps a nerdy cinephile who drives you crazy with haughty references to movies you have never seen or heard of. It is healthy! As it was healthy when the LA Phil embarked in 1992 on a bold adventure with the young conductor Esa Pekka-Salonen who pushed the orchestra, as well as the audience and sponsors, to experience avant-garde programming with contemporary, experimental, innovative composers. Today LA Phil is the envy of the music world, and a world-class orchestra.
Avant-garde gives new life to everything, even the standard, run-of-the-mill programs. We need cinema that will challenge us, enrage, puzzle and delight in ways we didn’t even know we could be stimulated. It gives health-food nourishment to our poor aneurism-clogged brains and nudges our cerebral power plant to awake from the stupor of the tiresome new age and science-averse pretentious spirituality. We need it to jolt us to a state of wonder by bringing bold cinema to our Hollywood shores.
Vera Mijojlic
Artistic Director of SEEfest
Two SEE films on the LoLA program on Sunday, 4/23: All the Cities of the North, with Serbian director Dane Komljen in person; and Scarred Hearts, by Romanian director Radu Jude.
Locarno in L.A. web site
We invite you to join us NEXT WEEK at the 12th edition of SEEfest, April 27 – May 4. Buy your festival pass today!
*NOTE: SEEfest Cine-Fan Members get a 20% discount on Festival Passes and tickets. Click here to join and get your promo code.
The Constitution Opens the 12th Annual SEEfest on April 27
Nebojša Glogovac. Photo by Hà Kin
The Constitution by Croatian director Rajko Grlic is the Opening night film of the 12th edition of SEEfest on Thursday, April 27 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, at 7:00 PM.
Winner of the Grand Prize of the Americas at the Montreal World Film Festival, and Best International Feature Film Award of the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2017, among other awards, The Constitution has enjoyed critical and commercial success wherever it was shown.
Tickets are now available for SEEfest Opening gala and screening of The Constitution.
April 27 at the Writers Guild Theater
135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly HIlls
Doors open at 6:00 pm
Film screens at 7:00 pm
Reception immediately following the film
Tickets – $20 includes screening and reception
*SEEfest Members get a 20% discount on Festival tickets.
SEEfest 2017 Festival Passes Available Now!
SEEfest 8-Day Full Access Festival passes are now on Sale!
Get your 8-Day Full Access Festival pass here.
42 days…We’re counting down to the opening gala for SEEfest on April 27.
We are pleased to announce you can get the Festival Full-Access pass for 8 days of screenings, panels, The Business of Film Conference, events and networking without worrying about getting a seat.
The Festival schedule is just about nailed down and will be announced soon.
Because of space limitations in most of our theatres, only 50 46 Festival passes are available. Tickets for individual screenings will be available in the coming weeks.
Get your Festival pass today, before they sell out. Limited to 2 passes per member.
See you on April 27 at the opening gala!
NOTE: SEEfest Cine-Fan Members get a 20% discount on Festival Passes and tickets. Click here to join and get your promo coupon code.
Cinema Under Siege – UC Berkeley, 10/7/16
SEEfest Staff Writer | October 20, 2016, 2:11 PM
SEEfest’s friend Fareed Ben-Youssef, Chancellor Fellow in PhD Program in Film & Media at UC Berkeley, coordinated a lovely event 
earlier this month: “Cinema Under Siege: The Sarajevo Film Festival and the Question of Curatorial Responsibility.” It was held on UC Berkeley’s campus on October 7th, 2016, and attracted a very successful turn-out.
The event included a discussion with Elma Tataragic, a successful programmer who worked on the Sarajevo Film Festival during wartime in the 1990’s and all subsequent 21 iterations. This was followed by a screening of The Diplomat, a reflective documentary about the life of former US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, directed by his son, David Holbrooke, who was present for a Q&A following the film.
Thought provoking and all too rare are these discussion of cinema and curation as art forms which carry with them a unique type of accountability. This event touched upon just that and much more in what was surely a thoughtful evening of audience participation and artistic reflection.
Here, in Fareed’s own words, is a review:
We began the evening with Elma’s discussing everyday life during the Siege as well as the urge to preserve a sense of normalcy. Then, she detailed the history of the film festival’s first iteration and considered the question of her curatorial responsibility to the city and its history. The audience asked her to further elaborate on her feelings leaving the city during festival preparation (which sparked an account of how she longed to return to Sarajevo) as well as her thoughts on cinema as a mode of grieving and healing.
David Holbrooke opened The Diplomat with a passage from Ambassador Richard Holbrooke’s biography wherein he described his less-than-ideal time at UC Berkeley in the sixties – I think Holbrooke the Younger had a much more positive experience!
The Q+A with David touched on the question of cinema as a tool of diplomacy as well as his experiences in Sarajevo during the festival. The audience asked for further elaboration on how he visualized the grind of negotiation and another student interested in the diplomacy posed a question on the problem of ambition.
Following the event, audience members spoke very highly of the proceedings, especially citing the valuable contextual work that Elma brought to the film. In short, it was a fascinating evening! See the attached photos. Please feel free to share any and all.
Fareed Ben-Youssef is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Film and Media at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his BA in English Literature with a Film Concentration from Princeton University and his master’s degree in the Film Studies Program in the department of Rhetoric at Berkeley. His dissertation, Visions of Power: Violence, the Law, and the Post-9/11 Genre Film, is concerned with specific moments where genre films (the Western, Film noir, and the Superhero film) disrupt a public discourse shaped by Manichean divisions. His conclusion examines international genre films to show how these texts articulate regional concerns and reflect on the ways in which their respective governments have responded to America’s global War on Terror. Aware of the cross-sections, slippages, and conflicts that exist within the ongoing dialogue between Hollywood entertainment and political discourse in the creation of competing visions of power, his study frames genre as a contested critical site—one of equal interest to politicians and to resistant filmmakers. Vacillating between wielders of state power and its victims, he ultimately shows how genre can serve as an invaluable mode of human rights critique.
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Transformation in the Asylum
Catharine Christof | October 11, 2016, 10:57 AM
Il Dolce Theater Company at Highways Performance Space presents: “The Colonel and The Birds.” Written by Hristo Boytchev. Directed by Neno Pervan.
For me – and I think for many of us – the theatre has to prove its worth by being something genuinely extraordinary. Something that means that if I do choose to leave the comfort of my home (sofa) that I’ll have a real opportunity to engage with something so vital and alive visceral that my opinions and beliefs are at risk of being changed. Last night, I wasn’t disappointed. Il Dolce’s production of The Colonel and the Birds – currently playing at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica was a piece of total theatre. It’s apparently one of the better-known plays of Bulgarian playwright, Hristo Boychev (I’d never heard of him – but I have every reason to believe the director, Neno Pervan).
I was present at something that was utterly engrossing not just because of the insanity of the story (and the story about insane people), but because of the completely immersive world the ensemble created. Their bodies were involved, their minds, the whole of their vulnerable beings were there – in front of me. The result was an experience that not only made me question my biases about madness (cultural? personal?), but also made me feel deep compassion for those that are the “left behind.” We’re all painfully aware of the horrors that war wreaks on civilians. But what about those who can’t take care of themselves? What happens to them? And what about those whose infirmities – for whatever reason – are in their minds?
Il Dolce Theatre Company’s production is not a dance piece – but it demands such total physicality from its actors that it became like a choreographed piece of insane reality. Getting the most out of the evening actually came down to a choice that I had to make. Because, at first I really didn’t want to engage with these insane creatures, stranded in the Balkans and stranded in their own minds. But the physicality of the actors, to a man and to a woman (and also to a man-woman), and the sheer virtuosity of their total commitment forced me to care about them. As the differences between the characters fell away scene by scene, so too did my own barriers to caring about them. And they – the most unlikely team of the war-damaged, war deranged and forgotten creatures –touched me.
The performances are worth mentioning for the virtuosity and the total immersion of the actors. It was truly an ensemble piece – led by the deeply charismatic Ian Salazar as the Colonel, encouraging transformation for the inmates with applied military precision. In no particular order, other performances worth mentioning include: Cameron Kauffman as Titch. Kaufman is utterly engaging, trapped in her own childlike and apparently innocent madness, but willing to play along with everyone else’s story. Lauren Elyse Buckley’s sexy nymph Meral required – and delivered – a sense of whole body engagement. Katie Robbins’ Mata Hari wields a potently aggressive sexy power – as if she’d been running the show for ages – that is, until the Colonel wakes up. Annalisa Cochrane’s Nina is trapped in her own Chekhovian nightmare. Cochrane does a wonderfully sensitive take on the ethereal loop-tape of an actress condemned to always deliver the same story and the same lines. Irish Giron’s Teresa is an extraordinary, clear and compassionate vision of transgender insanity. In Giron’s work, Teresa’s centre of gravity has shifted so high in his body that we get a visceral sense of the history that he/she might have been running from, and additional nuances further suggest why he/she would choose to “become” a nun. Alexa Vellanoweth’s Doctor, might be the sane one, but she too is trapped in her mind and in her own version of hellish reality. The Doctor’s honesty from early on in the play does make us wonder who she really was before the war. Vellanoweth’s honesty as a performer gives this an even richer framing, and her clear and direct addresses to the audience help frame the changing picture of reality.
When the Colonel’s vision for activity sets off a transformation in the asylum, ultimately the characters find more in common with each other than that which had previously separated them. That shared vision creates a bond – and a space that allows for us to share in some of that transformative journey too.
The Colonel and The Birds – Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica. October 7th to October 30th. Friday and Saturday at 8pm & Sunday matinees at 3pm. For tickets & directions, go to highwaysperformance.org.
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New Grant from the California Arts Council
SEEfest Staff Writer | July 7, 2016, 12:176 PM
On July 7, 2016 California Arts Council announced their grant awards to 712 non profit organizations, and SEEfest is proud to again be one of the recipients. Congratulations to all our colleagues statewide. We share this recognition with our supporters and many individual donors and volunteers. We look forward to a great 12th edition of the festival in 2017. Kudos to California Arts Council and the state legislators for supporting the arts! THANK YOU.
The California Arts Council’s competitive grant programs are administered through an open call for applications with all submissions adjudicated by peer review panels made up of experts from the arts field.
A Fiscal Year 2015-16 permanent state budget increase allowed the California Arts Council to award the largest number of grants provided by the state agency in 14 years.
Support international cinema in Los Angeles and new film talent from South East Europe. Donate here!
SEEfest 2015 Awards
Vera Mijojlic | May 8, 2015, 9:08 PM
SEEfest 2015 Awards
After eight days and 47 films shown to diverse audiences in Los Angeles, the 10th anniversary South East European Film Festival, SEEfest 2015 concluded Thursday night with an awards gala presentation at The Mark.
Director Tudor Jurgiu from Romania won Bridging the Borders award for Best Feature Film of the festival for his debut film, The Japanese Dog. Special Jury Mention went to Croatian filmmaker Tomislav Mršić for his debut film, Cowboys, and Special Jury Prize for Best Ensemble Cast was awarded to Albanian feature Bota, co-directed by Iris Elezi and Thomas Logoreci.
Down the River by Asif Rustamov from Azerbaijan won the Best First Feature award. Two narrative documentaries shared the Best Documentary Award, The Undertaker by Dragan Nikolić from Serbia, and Romania’s Flowers in the Shadows by Belgian director Olivier Magis. Awards for Best Cinematography went to Bulgarian Rat Poison director of photography Krasimir Andonov (feature film), and Dragan Vildović (documentary film) for his work in In the Dark from Serbia.
In the shorts category Strahinja Savić from Serbia won Best Short Fiction award for Nine Days, Alexandr Baev’s Once Upon Another Time from Georgia won for Best Documentary short, and Anton Octavian from Romania won Best Animation Short award for Elmando.
Winners of 2015 Audience Award were Albanian Bota (feature film), and Serbian In the Dark (narrative documentary).
The 2015 Juries included AFI faculty member and industry veteran Barry Sabath, filmmaker Mimi Freedman, Sundance associate programmer for international feature films Heidi Zwicker, actresses-turned-directors Christina Beck and Christiane Georgi, director of the cinematheque and the Frida cinema Logan Crow, filmmakers Guido Santi, Tina Mascara, John Fitzgerald Keitel, Jay Miracle, filmmaker and director of the Echo Park Film Center Paolo Davanzo, director of the Villa Aurora artist residence Margit Kleinman, Oscar-winning filmmaker and designer Arnold Schwartzman, filmmaker and cinematographer Roger Staub, and visual artist, designer and educator Jerry W. McDaniel.
Support international cinema in Los Angeles and new film talent from South East Europe. Donate here!