Kosovo's Dokufest Aims to Reflect Modern World

Kosovo's International Documentary and Short film festival, Dokufest, running from August 3 - 11 in Prizren, has already selected 255 films out of 2,500 that applied from all over the world. They will be screened in six competing categories and 14 other special categories.

Having a theme is a tradition of the festival, which tries to relate to important global topics through exhibitions, artistic talks, workshops and music performances. "Reflection" will be the theme of the 17th festival.

"We hope to provide a space where the momentum in which the world is today is reflected, and where we dare to imagine beyond the reality we're in, because only in that way we can improve it," Nita Deda, the director of the festival, told BIRN.  

She hopes the southern Kosovo city of Prizren will become a meeting point where ideas are exchanged and innovation is celebrated by working together.

The artistic director of the festival, Veton Nurkollari, said that for this edition, they have also selected films from the American Documentary Film Festival, AmDocs, Palm Springs and from Docs MX from Mexico City.

Dokufest says its North South Doc Network, gathering films from the United States, Mexico, Ecuador and Kosovo, aims at promoting the cinematography of all these places.

Nurkollari added that women are also in focus at this year's Dokufest. "We have a specially curated program, 'Between My Flash and the World's Finger' where all the films are produced by women," he said.

"From the early information that we have, this might be the edition with the biggest number of films produced by women," Nurkollari added.

Another special program, according to Nurkollari, is "Sonic Reflection".

"Sonic Reflection is a program with...