Free Zone Festival | Tourist Calendar of Serbia

Free Zone is a film festival held every year in early November in three cities in Serbia - Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Niš.

During the festival, 30 to 40 feature and documentary socially engaged films from around the world are screened, which have been awarded at prestigious international festivals in the previous year. The main goal of the festival is to encourage the audience to question values, prejudices, and the division of responsibility in the social and cultural context in which they live.

The first Free Zone festival was held in 2005, and this year it is expected to celebrate its 17th edition, lasting for 6 days. Since its modest beginnings in the cinema hall of the Cultural Center Belgrade, Free Zone has expanded over time to 3 cities and 10 venues.

The films screened at the festival address issues of discrimination, women's and children's rights, the position of marginalized social groups, wars and their consequences, numerous socially significant topics, as well as interesting biographical stories.

The festival also includes a competitive section in multiple categories, and we will mention just a few that have attracted the most attention in recent years.

A significant program segment is the Women's Line, which deals with gender equality, women's emancipation, facing traumas, and activism through art. One of the most notable films of this line is "The Silence of Others", which follows the struggle of victims of the Spanish forty-year dictatorship against amnesty for crimes committed under General Franco. The film was shot over six years and depicts the surviving victims who are preparing a revolutionary lawsuit against human injustice.

A lot of attention was also drawn to the premiere of the feature-documentary film "The Diary of Diana B." which tells the story of the heroic endeavor of an Austrian woman during World War II in the Independent State of Croatia and the rescue of Serbian children from the Ustaše concentration camp Jasenovac. This film won the Human Rights Award, as well as the Audience Award, bringing to light a topic that had been relativized and taboo in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for decades.

In recent years, the Green Zone has taken a special place, featuring films on environmental protection. One of the award-winning films in this category is the Greek film "The Miner", which addresses the seriousness of the problem of environmental degradation for material gain. Through the relationship between a father living in the forests of northern Greece, persistently destroyed by industrial tycoons, and his son who hopes for profit, the film depicts a conflict that tends to undermine the entire planet and what can emerge from the depths of the human soul.

An interesting part of the program is called Coffee with the Authors, providing the audience with an opportunity to fully understand the themes and motifs through conversations and discussions with filmmakers.

The festival is part of a broader initiative that extends beyond the festival days and lasts throughout the year. It includes a festival tour that takes place in 50 cities in Serbia, as well as various educational programs.

You can view the complete festival program and everything that Free Zone encompasses on the official website.