Editor

The International Festival of Tourist, Ecology, Sports, and Culinary Film – MEFEST- 2008 is taking place this year for the 16th time.

Founded in 1993, this Festival with its various programs, reliable esthetics and social orientation, curiosity of its selectors and high criteria of its Juries, has achieved recognition at home and abroad, and, therefore, without any exaggeration can be recognized as an outstanding, radiant spot on a great atlas of global manifestations of similar kind.


The author of this project, the late Gavrilo Azinović, pictured MEFEST as the ultimate cultural event, whose goal is to present modern achievements of the documentary film from the fields of tourism, ecology, and sport.


The International Festival of Tourist, Ecology, Sport and Culinary Films - MEFEST was established at most difficult times for us and our country. It was in September of 1993 on Zlatibor, where it celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Eleventh MEFEST' 2003 took place in hotel "Termal" in Vrdnik, Fruska Gora, Autonomous Region Vojvodina.

The 12th MEFEST 2004 was back to Zlatibor, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th MEFEST continued their “rich life” in Brus, a picturesque town under the mountain range of Kopaonik, the roof of Serbia. This year, for the very first time, MEFEST comes to the banks of Danube and Silver Lake, in the vivid town of Veliko Gradište.

MEFEST is the first and the oldest international film festival in this region, which within the scope of its program presents films on tourism, ecology, sport and culinary.

Our most prominent filmmakers and authors took part in creation and work of the Festival. Among great names of our cinematography were: Aleksandar Sasa Petrovic (the first President of the Jury), Misa Radivojevic (the first Art Director), Krsto Skanata, Petar Lalovic, Zdravko Velimirovic, Slobodan Sijan, Zdravko Sotra, Dinko Tucakovic, Ivo Laurencic, Milan Knezevic, Moma Martinovic, Branko Baletic, Nikola Stojanovic, Petar Volk, Luj Todorovic, Bozidar Zecevic, Lordan Zafranovic, Dr Drasko Redzep, Nevenka Redzic Toth, Karpo Acimovic Godina, Valerio Provvedi and others.


Owing to the Festival, a number of esteemed foreign authors were guests of the Festival: Antonio Conte (Italy, Honorary President of MEFEST, President of the European Tourist Press and the Honorary President of CIFFT), Nikolaj Burlajev (Russia, Manager of the festival "Golden Knight"), Antonio Correia (Portugal, Manager of "Festoril"), professor Carlo Savini (Italian government's advisor for ecology), Rudolf Kammel (Austria, general manager of CIFFT), Prof. Nikolae Luca (Romania, director of the festival in Bucharest), Jean Pierre Fleury (France, secretary of the European Community of Debutant Film), Irina Kanuseva (Bulgaria, film critic), Valerio Provvedi (Italy, film critic and journalist), Radoslav Ginovski (Bulgaria, director of photography), Graham Thompson (Director from Canada), Paolo Giuntarelli (Manager of Roma Natura Protected Area, Lazio Region, Rome, Italy) Masuru Katano and Noriko Sugai (Japan, journalists and TV authors, EARTH GUARDIAN NIPPON), Olivera Jevtic (athletics), Marijan Benes (Republic of Srpska, champion in box), and many others, ambassadors of Chile, Angola, Canada, as well as attaches for culture of: USA, China, Chile, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, Austria, Angola, South Korea, film authors and workers from Russia, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Greece, Slovakia, Republika Srpska, Canada, Indonesia and other countries.

The register of presented films is considerable and unavoidable, as well as the list of authors and direct participants at our Festival. Literally and in every other sense, it remained a great, wide open chance for those who have something to say concerning the topic of contemporary man in nature, on travel, and in sport.

During fifteen years of MEFEST's existence, more than 1.600 films were shown, out of which 800 were from Europe and abroad, i.e. from 50 countries. MEFEST received the award for quality and unique conception of program and professional organization in 1996, when it joined the European Association of Tourist Film Festivals - CIFFT (http://www.cifft.com), whose Central office is in Vienna.

Today MEFEST is our festival, with which, in every sense, Serbian culture can be proud; it is an opened window into the world of new Medias, culturally refined and educative at the same time.

This Festival has established good cooperation with other related festivals in the world enabling our authors to present their achievements and to be evaluated outside of our country.

Dr Drasko Redjep, president of the Jury of the 11th MEFEST and President of the Festival Council, has mentioned that without these various festival programs, we would not be able to recognize our people and land and also our worn out, tormented and humiliated planet.

Besides its film program, Festival organizes presentation of relevant topics on tourism, ecology and sport. However, it has become a tradition of the Festival to have the exhibition of the paintings thematically connected to the Festival at its opening.