Bitef

22 ND -25™ SEPTEMBER 38 th BITEF ON FILM 14 /YUGOSLAV FILM ARCHIVE SERBIAN NATIONAL THEATRE, NOVI SAD /

A hundred years have elapsed since the Great War or, as some people call it, the primal catastrophe of the twentieth century. Memories, discussions, accusations, justifications, articles, treatises, books, plays, films... and Bitef, but rather than a story about the Great War, the festival offers a story about the past in the form of the present. As one watches the productions selected for Bitef this year, one immediately comes up with the title and subject-matter of Bitef on Film: Intolerance. On the other hand, if we watch films chosen for the programme, we can conclude that at the bottom of it all is envy. There is a story about envy in the early literature of our part of the world - The Bibie. In the very beginning there were Cain and Abel and they were followed by hosts of the envious and they have caught up with us. And in the beginning of film history is the unavoidable D.W. Griffith with his intolerance presented through history: in its core is the very first beginning of everything: the envy.

I listen, I read the reminiscences about the First, the Second and all the other wars and I remember... 1975. At that time I worked for Fest. That year it showed the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Our guest was Serge Silberman, producer of important French and most of Bunuel’s films. He was a Jew, born in Lodz, a survivor of a German concentration camp. He shocked me when he said: “People are getting restive, there hasn’t been a war for a long time.” 1 thought; nobody will go to war in Europe after World War 11. At that time the 1990 s in Yugosla via seemed to me inconceivable. Agnieszka Arnold is, like Serge Silberman, from Lodz. She is the author of a documentary film Neighbours about the persecution of Jews in Jedwabne, north-east of Warsaw. The horrendously cruel event which took place during the German occupation, is memorable because the responsible for it were Poles, Jewish ‘neighbours’, In literature, this event was addressed by the well-known Polish writer Tadeusz Slobodzianek in his play Our Class to be presented during the main Bitef programme this year. The production comes from Lithuania where, as in Poland, there is the inglorious history of the persecution of Jews. It will be interesting to compare documentary and literary versions of the same event in the PolishLithuanian adaptation.

De Sica, Visconti and Zafranović in their films The Garden of Finzi-Continies, La caduta degli dei and Occupation in Twenty-Six Pictures, respectively, reflected along the same lines as Griffith, Slobodzianek and Arnold. Past is Present is the title of Bitef this year. And the fact that a large number of film and theatre artists address the past in their work is a phenomenon supporting this thesis. This also goes for the fact that the works inspired by past incidents have as their subject-matter intolerance and envy, showing the history of the humankind as a history of violence. Vera Konjović

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Bitef on film

48 Bitef 14