Vucic Perovic Wins Grand Prix at Nis Film Festival

The Amphitheater on the Quay in Nis was packed to the last row last night, September 3, for the final time this year. Six days of film screenings closed the way they opened, with applause on the red carpet, except this time the jury walked onstage after the screenings with a list of names that will be circulating through the city and beyond for days to come.

Before a single name was read out, Petar Bencina, president of the Serbian Film Actors’ Association, addressed the audience and thanked the people of Nis for their support throughout the festival.

Tonight’s closing rounded off an important chapter, one that will go on living its own life. We had the support of the people of Nis at every step, and that is what stays in the heart, and what gives meaning to all of this. We are happy and excited that we spent all six of these days together, and this evening is the finale of our shared success.

That is how Bencina described six days that, judging by the sold-out screenings at the Amphitheater, were indeed full ones. After him, this year’s jury, Paulina Manov, Ivana Vukovic and Katarina Zutic, took the stage, and that is where the evening turned from a standard closing ceremony into something livelier.

The top honor, the Grand Prix for best acting achievement, went to Vucic Perovic for his role as Dejan in Goran Stankovic’s “Our Father,” the film that had opened the festival. The jury did not write a dry citation for the award. Instead, they turned in a small, playful piece of wordplay on the theme of excess.

For the mastery and ease with which he moves through a wrenching transformation, from a vulnerable young man, through an accomplice, to the victim of a brutal system. Far from any stereotype, we saw all the pain of an addict in his eyes, in the hardest and most tormented moments of silence. Perovic overdosed us with an extraordinary acting range, courage and truth.

The word “overdosed” was not a random choice for a role about addiction, and that touch of wit in the citation is exactly what set this year’s ceremony apart from the usual roll call of names and films.

What is not obvious in the Grand Prix alone, but becomes clear once you add up the full list of winners, is that the prizes did not stay locked into a single title. “Our Father” took the top honor and the special citation for best male role, awarded to Boris Isakovic, but the rest of the categories spread across a whole range of different films: from the family drama “Yugo Florida,” to “Crack in the Ice,” which had its premiere in Nis itself, to genre pieces as different as “Cat’s Cry” and “Karmadona.” In a year when domestic cinema often looks like a race between the same handful of titles for every award, that is a fairly healthy sign, it means this season’s crop of performances was too broad for one festival to fit into a single headline.

A special place in that variety belongs to the comedy award, established nine years ago in honor of Milorad Mandic Manda, which this year went to Andjelka Stevic Zugic. At a festival that opened and closed with two serious titles, “Our Father” and “Hajduk in Belgrade,” that award is a reminder that the craft of acting is not measured only in transformations and tears, but also in the ability to make an audience laugh without tipping into caricature.

The full list of winners from this year’s closing ceremony:

• Grand Prix for best acting achievement: Vucic Perovic, “Our Father”
• Best male role: Andrija Kuzmanovic, “Yugo Florida”
• Best female role: Jovana Stojiljkovic, “Crack in the Ice”
• Special citation for an outstanding female role: Jelena Djokic, “Karmadona”
• Special citation for an outstanding male role: Boris Isakovic, “Our Father”
• Best supporting role: Hana Selimovic, “Yugo Florida,” and Igor Filipovic, for “The Trip” and “Karmadona”
• Best debut role: Andrijana Djordjevic, “Cat’s Cry”
• Best foreign actor: Jasmin Geljo, “Cat’s Cry”
• Best foreign actress: Feresteh Hoseini, “Among the Gods”
• Milorad Mandic Manda comedy award: Andjelka Stevic Zugic

Alongside the winners, the red carpet also drew Nada Sargin, Nikola Djuricko, Sloboda Micalovic, Dragan Micanovic, Milos Timotijevic, Viktor Savic and Marta Bjelica over the course of the evening, while the closing slot went to “Hajduk in Belgrade,” whose cast, including Ana Lecic and other actors from the film, walked the carpet as well.

We had not covered the Nis festival before, but judging by the list of names that gathered in one place last night, and by how many different films walked away with an award, this was not a festival easy to overlook.