Dejan Dabić, artistic director March Festival (Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival) resigned.
In the letter he sent on August 17 to the president of the festival board, Nikola Rajičić, and the members of that body, he cites the president's refusal to postpone today's session, which was supposed to adopt the competition program for this year's March festival, as the reason for his resignation.
The context is as follows: last year the March Festival was not held, although the program was ready. In order for the selected films to be shown, the Festival Board decided this April that from September 21 to 27 of this year, a double edition of the March Festival would be held, where the selection from last year and from this year would be shown.
Dejan Dabić asked for the postponement of the session "due to health reasons". He believes that "due to the importance of the session and the need to explain the proposal of the competition program of 58 films - 31 domestic and 27 foreign, where there are also some films that look at our reality in a creative but also critical way, it was necessary for me to be physically present."
Films that take a critical look at reality
He reminds that "this composition of the Board entrusted him with the mandate in January and we immediately announced a competition for films on January 22, which ended on February 22."
He says that the selection committee was only elected on June 5, and that precious time was lost due to annual vacations and "some program disagreements", which proves that the preparation of the festival is not delayed because of him.
This is the second time that Dabić, in a letter to the Board, mentions "films that take a critical look at our reality."
As we unofficially learn, those films are artistic and authored, that is, the program of the March Festival proposed by Dabić does not include productions about civil protests broadcast by national programs on regime television.
Adoption of programs without selectors
"Now we are where we are and we need to quickly break the program over its knees," says Dejan Dabić in the letter.
"The documentary film festival must also contain films that speak critically about our reality," wrote Dejan Dabić.
Because of all this, he believes that his presence at the session, which is ongoing at the time of writing this text, was necessary.
"I cannot get over the fact that someone without my direct participation in the session wants to adopt the program that I made with my colleagues from the selection committee, and I consider it a disrespect for the function of the artistic director, and I no longer see any good reason to continue to perform this function and to participate in the organization of the March Festival", writes Dejan Dabić at the end of the letter.
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