Movie Festival Brightens up Divided Vukovar

The eighth Vukovar Film Festival, also known as the Danube Region Film Festival, opens on 25 August, bringing movies and events over six days to the eastern border town best known for its divisions and tragic history.

The town is unfortunately famous for the destruction and bloodshed it endured when Serbian forces besieged and overran it in 1991. Lately, Vukovar has been in the news again as the centre of an ethnic dispute over bilingual signs.

In spite of this, the film festival has grown constantly, reaching 81 films this year, some of which are coming from the most prestigious film festivals Europe and America, such as Berlin, Cannes and the Sundance festival.

Among those worth mentioning, “Notebook”, directed by Janos Szasz of Hungary, is the story of children left with their cruel, alcoholic grandmother during World War 2. The film was awarded a Crystal Globe at Karlyovi Vary in 2013.

“White God”, directed by another Hungarian, Kornel Mundruczo, gives viewers a perception of the world as seen by a stray dog, which is looking for its owner and struggling to survive. The movie won the Un Certain Regard prize this year at Cannes.

An Italian-German coproduction “The Wonders”, directed by Alice Rohrwacher, which won the Grand Prix in 2014 in Cannes, is a coming-of-age story of a young girl growing up amidst bees in the Tuscan countryside.

“Stations of the Cross”, directed by the German Dietrich Bruggemann, explores a 14-year-old girl’s quest to become a saint.

A Croatian action movie “Number 55”, based upon a true story from war of the 1990s, will also be in the competition. Directed by Kristijan Milic, it won prizes at this year’s Pula Film...