A helicopter descends in the frosty morning, Emir Kusturica, wearing a black fur cap, stands near by together with women in traditional costumes, all ready to welcome the guest. It looks like a film shot, but this time it is for real. Greg de Cuir, Jr risked his life to bring us a report from the legendary Küstendorf International Film and Music Festival, the anti-festival with a twist.
The moment you arrive in Drvengrad (Wooden City) in the Mokra Gora region of Serbia, you realize that this is a film festival venue like no other. In fact, this is a village like no other – at least in Serbia, and I would imagine the surrounding region as well, perhaps even the greater part of Eastern Europe. Drvengrad, a picturesque setting with cobblestone walkways and beautiful mountain views, was originally built by Emir Kusturica as a set for one of his recent films, LIFE IS A MIRACLE / ŽIVOT JE ČUDO (2004). He has now breathed life into that set, with fully-functioning restaurants, cabins, a church, and a hotel. Drvengrad has morphed into a quaint tourist attraction, and as a movie set it is fitting terrain for hosting a film festival.
Küstendorf International Film and Music Festival is one long spectacle, a great show with an involving narrative. Kusturica, the patron of the festival, cuts a larger-than-life figure while performing a variety of roles with flair – festival director, musician, professor, and of course film director. The Opening Night performance of this 2014 festival was a reenactment of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, an event that sparked the First World War 100 years ago in 1914. This performance was staged in the center of Drvengrad under the stars, with the Sarajevo cityscape projected as a hologram onto the facades of what were already false sets to begin with, making for quite the self-reflexive and postmodern aesthetic. An entire essay could be written on this opening performance, including the political implications of such an undertaking. The reenactment included an army of young dancers, Kusturica inserting himself into and halting the action in an odd Brechtian moment of audience address, and an explosive conclusion with disco music and a fireworks display so vivid and proximate that this reviewer was hit on the cheek with hot ash while looking up into the sky. Film festival reporting had never before seemed to me a risky endeavor, but of course with great risk comes great rewards. This was my baptism by fire into the Küstendorf experience.
The disco music drew spectators into the main theater where the festival proper was introduced by Kusturica with more music and dance. The opening night film was THE PAST / LE PASSÉ, and after the screening Kusturica bestowed an award for future work on Asghar Farhadi. The Iranian director sat for a question and answer session that was open to the entire audience. In fact, this was the format for each of the six feature films screened on the six festival nights, in which contemporary directors like Paolo Sorrentino with the relatively empty THE GREAT BEAUTY / LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (yes, I know, that was the point of the film) and Alexandros Avranas with the brilliant MISS VIOLENCE discussed their work. This limited international program serves the purpose to devote close attention to each film and director, also to maintain the priority on students and student films.
This prioritizing of students is the key to the significance of the festival. The competition program consists of student films from all over the world. Each director is supported by the festival with travel funding, so that they can be present with their work. There are also a number of other student participants during the festival. As Küstendorf progresses, it soon becomes apparent that it is all about the students in terms of giving them a showcase, but also in educating and encouraging them. Having the chance to show early work in an intimate setting to such distinguished guests as Thierry Frémaux of the Cannes Film Festival, Jury President and actress Bérénice Bejo, screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, and others is surely a unique and powerful opportunity for the young participants.
The Student Competition is judged for three awards – the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Egg. The Golden Egg went to the Slovakian film THE EXHIBITION / VÝSTAVA by Andrej Kolencik and Peter Beganyi. This short is a heartwarming comedy about a group of characters working at an underfunded state-run museum. Comedy was the most promising genre in the student competition, which says a lot about the talent of this generation and given the difficulty of comedic execution. Before the top awards were handed out by Bejo, each of the student directors in competition were given a certificate and applauded for their various achievements.
With this being said, Küstendorf is an independent festival in the truest sense. Attendees often note that they appreciate the lack of a red carpet. To that, one should add that there is a total lack of corporate sponsorship and logos of any type. While hanging out in one of the cafes in Drvengrad I tried to order a Coke, to which the reply was a polite shake of the head and a 'sorry'. Kusturica has given his festival an anti-commercial slant that is as refreshing as the mountain air in Mokra Gora.
Since this is a film and music festival, each evening a midnight concert was held, including such acts as the French jazz singer Zaz, the Serbian punk legends Riblja Čorba, and Kusturica himself with The No Smoking Orchestra. In short, every night at the festival was a party, not the least of which the actual Closing Night party, featuring food and more live music and where Bejo danced the Serbian kolo into the early hours of the morning.
Other elements of the festival consisted of a special program of New Hollywood cinema of the 1960s and 1970s, to which your humble reporter delivered an introductory presentation, along with an exhibition of Polish poster art for these American films. These amazing posters, on loan from the Łódź Film Museum, represent great works of surreal and experimental stylistics. The highly abstract designs often ran at a tangent to the content of the film advertised, revealing the free play with form that these designers were afforded. Described as a 'lost art’ by Kusturica, these dynamic posters could also be considered cinema by other means, as they supplement the fiction they represent with autonomous visions. The only unfortunate drawback was that the exhibition did not include any biographical details on the artists themselves, a strange oversight given the emphasis of unique authorial presences in both the exhibition and the philosophy of the festival in general.
Overall, Küstendorf is a well-run affair and all of the guests, students included, are treated with warm hospitality. For example, the stars of the event are flown into the venue by helicopter and given a personal welcome by locals dressed in the style of their region, bearing their traditional food and drink. While sitting in my cabin, working on my laptop, the daily sound of an approaching helicopter functioned like an alarm bell of sorts, promising a unique personality to color the evening’s proceedings. Putting aside the numerous amenities, perhaps Küstendorf’s intimacy of location and relationships are its strongest assets. It is likely no coincidence that the festival takes place during the same week as Sundance – another event held in the snowy mountains, created by and named after a famous film personality. Robert Redford has gone on record stating that it may be time for him to step down from active duty as a result of the fact that Sundance has strayed beyond its initial mission and is now a commercial behemoth. Consider Küstendorf the anti-Sundance then (like Slamdance). It is a brilliant stroke of counter-programming by Kusturica, a director known for his controversial political views but not known enough for his sincere nurturing of young people of all types and from all over the world. In this seventh edition, maybe it is still early to tell whether Küstendorf will in time deviate from its unique ideology. Due to the strong and defiant character of its creator and the obvious joy he derives from a personal touch, the odds are against it.
