At the upcoming, 49th International Film Festival - FEST, which will be held from May 7 to 16, the five winners of this year's most prestigious award in the world of film - the Oscar - will be screened for the first time in Serbia. The FEST audience will be able to see Chloé Zhao's ’Nomadland’, which won Best Picture, Directing and Actress in a Leading Role Oscars (Frances McDormand), Florian Zeller's ’The Father’, winner in the categories of Actor in a Leading Role (Anthony Hopkins) and Adapted Screenplay (Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton), ’Promising Young Woman’ whose director and screenwriter Emerald Fennell won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, ’Sound of Metal’ with awards for Best Film Editing and Sound, as well as the film ’Minari’ by Lee Isaac Chung, which won the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Youn Yuh-jung). A film that was shortlisted for an Oscar outside the English-speaking world, in the category for Best International Feature Film - ’The Man Who Sold His Skin’ by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania will also be screened in the Main Competition Programme of the 49th FEST.
The film ’Nomadland’ by Chinese director Chloé Zhao, has in the foreground the legendary actress Frances McDormand, who won the Oscar for her acting for the third time, after the films ‘Fargo’ (1996) and ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ (2017), as well as many other prestigious awards in the world of acting. She thus joined a select company of just four active actors with three Oscars each, that still includes Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis. Chloé Zhao became the second woman in Oscar history to be awarded in the category for best director, for her third feature film. ’Nomadland’ follows the main character Fern, who lost everything during the economic crisis, and in her sixties embarks on a journey across the American West, living in a van like the nomads of the modern age.
In the film ‘The Father’ by director Florian Zeller, the main character is portrayed by the legendary actor Anthony Hopkins, in one of his most impressive roles in his entire career. At the heart of this film is his acting creation, which received praise from critics and audiences around the world and deservedly won an Oscar, second in the Best Actor category for this veteran actor. Hopkins plays a mischievous, eighty-year-old Anthony, living defiantly alone and rejecting the help of caregivers that his daughter Anne encouragingly introduces. Yet help is also becoming a necessity for Anne because she can no longer make daily visits and Anthony is losing grip on reality. The female lead is the British actress Olivia Colman, who won an Oscar two years ago for her role in the film ‘The Favorite’, known to the television audience for her masterful role in the series ‘The Crown’ about the life of British Queen Elizabeth II. Other roles include Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, and Olivia Williams.
The film ’Promising Young Woman’ by director and screenwriter Emerald Fennell will present to the Belgrade audience the British actress Carey Mulligan, who was nominated for an Oscar for the second time in her career this year (after her role in the film ‘An Education’ from 2009), and at this year's FEST the audience will be able to see another film with her in the lead role - ‘The Dig’ at the opening ceremony of the Festival. ’Promising Young Woman’ is about a young woman Cassie, whose life was promising until a mysterious event happened that suddenly changed the course of her future. Nothing in Cassie's life is what it appears to be: she is wickedly smart, tantalizingly cunning and she is leading a secret, double life by night. An unexpected encounter is about to give Casey a chance to correct mistakes from the past. Starring alongside Carey Mulligan are Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, and others.
The film ’Sound of Metal’ follows the drummer of the metal band, Ruben, who begins to lose his hearing. The creative approach to depicting his situation came to the fore in the editing and sound, for which this film received the most prestigious world film award. When the doctor tells Ruben that his condition will get worse, he thinks that his career and life are over and he has to choose between the new reality and the life he once knew. This film was directed by Darius Marder, starring Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff and Mathieu Amalric.
The drama ‘Minari’ follows a Korean-American family who moves to a farm in Arkansas in search of their own American dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their cunning, messy, but incredibly kind grandmother played by Youn Yuh-jung, this year’s Oscar winner in the Best Supporting Actress category. The film was directed by Lee Isaac Chung and stars Steven Yeun, Han Yeri, Alan Kim, Noel Kate Cho, Youn Yuh-jung and Will Patton.
The Tunisian film ’The Man Who Sold His Skin’ has Sam Ali as the protagonist, a young, sensitive and impulsive Syrian who left his country and fled to Lebanon to escape the war. In order to be able to travel to Europe and live with the love of his life, he accepts a contemporary artist to tattoo his back. By turning his own body into a prestigious work of art, Sam will however come to realize that his decision might mean anything but freedom. The film was directed by Kaouther Ben Hania and stars Yahya Mahayni, Dea Liane, Monica Bellucci, Koen de Bouw, Darina Al Joundi and Christian Vadim.
The Festival will be held this year in compliance with all measures of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the COVID-19 Infection Disease Crisis Response Team. The priority for the organizing team of the Festival is the health and safety of the audience, the guests and the Festival team.
Information about the programme and ticket sales for the 49th International Film Festival - FEST can be found on the Festival website: https://www.fest.rs/
