Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival 2012 with title TALK TO ME- multilingualism and communication opened its doors to all young and creative people as well as everyone passionate about the short film industry from 20 to 22 September 2012 in Tirana at Tirana Ekspres venue. The 3rd edition of BBB Short Film Festival was a co-organization of Balkans Beyond Borders and Tirana Art Lab.
The festival tackled the topical subject of multilingualism and communication and motivates young people to “TALK TO ME”. “The Balkans are known for their culture, traditions and multilingualism and it is exactly this diversity that we see as an added value, an opportunity to share and exchange our experience.”
The audience in Tirana filled the alternative art space, Tirana Ekspres that hosted the festival all the three days of the festival. All young people from Albania, the Balkans and Europe that came to the Festival had the opportunity to share a Balkan experience, get inspired and motivated by the films and get another perspective regarding the Balkan reality. Celebrating Balkan diversity, multilingualism and communication, the 3rd edition of the festival brought together a selection of 30 short films from Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Kosovo, Slovenia, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Moldova, Belgium and Italy. All selected films were created by young filmmakers up to the age of 30 from the Balkan region and beyond (Southeast Europe).
AWARDS
Budapest Backwards by Jeroen Sebrechts won the “Best Film” prize. According to the jury, composed by Joni Shanaj (film director, Albania), Yorgos Zois (film director, Greece) and Idro Seferi (journalist and writer, Kosovo), «this film stands out from the rest and was closer to the topic of this year’s festival about multilingualism and communication. The story is masterly told and the acting is outstanding. Both actors are absolutely genuine and the directing is superb. The story is told in a simple humanistic and strong way and relates most of Balkans people feelings about separation. Most of us coming from the Balkans really do understand this film dealing with love and separation (or non separation) It is very difficult in cinema to genuinely tell a love story. Not many filmmakers succeed in achieving this».
The Audience Prize went to the Albanian short fiction Beyond the river directed by Sabir Kanaqi.
Taking into consideration the good quality of this year’s films presented in the festival, the Jury gave “Special Mentions” to three other films:
A day of clear weather, a fiction documentary directed by Odeta Cunaj and Alketa Ramaj from Albania, “RF” a fiction film directed by Stavros Liokalos from Greece and Scrap Material a documentary directed by Stefan Ivancic from Serbia.
For one more time this year’s prizes were made by Marieta Lyriotaki and the lomo cameras were from lomography.gr.
Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival is a festival that travels each year to a different city in the Balkans and is dedicated to encouraging young film makers to express themselves on issues relevant to their region and lives, building bridges between the peoples of the Balkans. After Belgrade and Athens, this year Balkans Beyond Borders film festival was held in Tirana for its 3rd edition.
This year’s festival was supported by the European Fund for the Balkans.