SEEfest Grant Award from Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Fantastic news from SEEfest!

We are proud to share that the 14th edition of the South East European Film Festival LA is a recipient of a festival grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), home of the Golden Globes.

“We are greatly honored by this recognition and grateful to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for supporting festivals that bring foreign language films to Los Angeles. This grant will help us provide mentorship for innovative projects and workshops for South East European filmmakers, and expand marketing to local film aficionados, educators, film scholars, and youth audiences, introducing them to cinematic gems from 18 South East European countries covered by the festival.”

-Vera Mijojlić, Founder & Artistic Director

This year’s SEEfest, running May 1-8, will explore the theme of cinematic audacity by drawing attention to filmmakers whose works grapple with complex existential, ethical, and historical questions in innovative, and provocative ways. You can secure your festival pass now on Eventbrite.

Free screening and director Q&A

If you’re in the Long Beach area on Thursday evening. March 21, join us at California State University at Long Beach for a special free screening with the Jewish Studies Program of Gyula Gazdag’s 1985 documentary Package Tour. Following a group of Holocaust survivors and their children embarking on a tour to Auschwitz and Birkenau, The Package Tour asks why these people have come back – to remember? To try to understand how it could happen, and if it could happen again?

Gyula Gazdag is a director of film, theatre, and television productions and a professor at UCLA. He has served as the Artistic Director of the Sundance Directors Lab since 1997.

Followed by Q&A with director Gyula Gazdag and Vera Mijojlić

Literary Salon

Before SEEfest kicks off on May 1st, join us on April 17th at the West Hollywood Library for the literary and cultural salon Audacious Storytellers, with a thought-provoking interdisciplinary discussion of audacity in all of its forms. Through personal anecdotes, literary perspectives, and geopolitical histories, the panel will discuss the nature of audacity in an area of the world where borders continuously challenge national and cultural paradigms. Presented with the support of the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division. Click here to RSVP.

Stay tuned for more announcements about the Opening and Closing Night films, a new sci-fi sidebar program, full film lineup, and the Business of Film Conference!

SEEfest Sponsors

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 Arts Commission; and presented with the support of the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division. Special thanks to ELMA for continued support of our programs.