Second day of The 38th International Film Festival - FEST 2010, in Belgrade, Serbia passed very quickly especially as we had the honor to watch film with someone like Ralph Fiennes. One of the guests of festival is Alisse Simon, a selector of the Palm Springs Festival and a well known Variety Magazine film critic, for 25 years now.

At the first press conference, everyone wanted to know about her criteria while judging films on festival. Simon was a jurist on many festivals by now. „ I look for the directing skill, the story is important to me and something I haven’t seen by now. Lot of it is based on a subjective personal feel. When my heart beats faster or I stay without breathe, I simply know that it is about a good film,” commented Simon for a press.

The second day of the festival, had one of the very important discussion lead by a Serbian Film Director Slobodan Šijan, about the last few years of sudden break of women directors in Balkan Cinematography in a feature and documentary films, and it happened in the countries where women were not so prominent as filmmakers. This wave brought important changes that improved the quality of regional cinema as well as its international reception. Once we consider a great success of Bosnian filmmakers Jasmila Zbanic and Aida Begic, as many others who might prove themselves internationally, in the future be, it is possible to see that such important changes require cinema as well as its international reception. It requires attention and focuses on the phenomena itself, in order to analyze in a way to deepen Balkan insight for the issues that these films raise.

Persecution screened at International Film Festival FEST 2010 in Belgrade

Some people might think that the France produce too many films about people arguing about their relationships, having sex or sitting in bars. But that someone (the film director) has to be good in that too, especially if person is European. “Persecution” is more likely to mirror the Chereau’s French art house films. New Patrice Chereau’s film “Persecution” could be seen as a portrait of narcissism, and it is film of the moment, sort of figure of speech. Two courageous performances from Romain Duris and Charlotte Gainsbourg give the film a certain profile attached to Chereau. “Persecution” is characteristic Chereau – distant, remote and provocative in the certain sense. Daniel, the main character of the film is a typical profile: he is a scary, cruel and self-absorbed young Paris man, characteristic for its rage and suffering, as well as he is a remarkably good with him being “unsympathetic Daniel” because of his suffer from jealousy and insecurity. Young and beautiful Duris plays a pretty Daniel, is a man with no intention to commit to any job and has no home and sleeps on the sofa of an apartment. His unsettled existence spices the other side of him: the side that still finds time to help out in an old people’s home and has a girlfriend called Sonia (wonderful Gainsbourg). Daniel is suffering a little, because of his lunatic stalker (Anglade). The stalker claims that he can see into Daniel’s soul and is unconditionally in love with him. How he will be coping with that?

Chereau profiles several powerful scenes between Duris and Gainsbourg, where he shows the difficult relationship and the impossible nature of Daniels’ needs; and while Chereau’s characters are determine to bring complex human interactions to the screen, as he has shown in his previous films (such as “Intimacy” for instance) is always admirable. A lot of Chereau’s films are set at that moment. ”At one point you reach the point where the relationship is finished. You can no longer talk. You need a lot of courage to admit it. The words become difficult. I don't know—it's something that's always interested me. About the editing—I don't know, because I think I try... Well, in my previous films—10, 20 years ago—I tried to follow the rules of "film language." Make a master shot, then a close-up. To learn the usual grammar of the cinema. But it wasn't me; it wasn't my style. Suddenly, with Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, I finally found my own way. I thought, "I don't care what people think. I'll make the images I want, and edit as I want." The only law is to follow the actors. The camera has to be with the actors, and it has to be my point of view. People ask, "What point of view is this shot from? Which character?" I say, "From mine." If I identify with someone, like Daniel in Persecution, I wish to explain the character” said Patrice Chereau.

Radmila Djurica