NAFFIT 2026: Tvrdjava Wins Seven Awards in Zlatibor
The third NAFFIT festival closed in Zlatibor: the series Tvrdjava took home seven awards, Zetva was named best film, and Nastassja Kinski received the award for contribution to world cinema.
When Nastassja Kinski walked onto the stage of the Zlatibor Cultural Center to accept the award for contribution to world cinema, the first thing she said was not a thank-you to any jury. “Stay golden, let’s stay golden… Stay golden,” she said, holding the statuette, before adding that she owed her thanks to the Government of Serbia, director Gaga Antonijevic, and the team that had put together a dance and lighting number ahead of her walk to the stage. It was the only sentence of the evening that mentioned no title, no category, not even the festival itself, the only one addressed to the audience rather than to the structure that organized the ceremony.
The third National Film and Television Festival, NAFFIT, closed on September 5 with an awards ceremony at the Zlatibor Cultural Center. Best film went to Zetva, accepted on the producer’s behalf by Dragan Ivanovic, while best series went to Tvrdjava, produced by Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), which walked away with seven awards that night, essentially sweeping every category it was entered in. We wrote about this festival before, when Dragan Vladic received an award for half a century of work behind the camera, but the closing ceremony was the chance to see the full list of winners, and that list says more than the opening night did.
NAFFIT is organized by the Zlatibor Cultural Center and the Serbian Film Center, in a year marking a century since the birth of actor Pavle Vuisic, so the closing program was also built around that anniversary, with a performance by the Srpska Svita ensemble and choreography dedicated to him. In its third edition, the festival kept the formula that sets it apart from most domestic showcases: it rewards craft categories too, editing, sound design, makeup, costume design, which bigger festivals typically push into a side segment of the ceremony. This time those categories were not a side segment. They were part of the same story as Tvrdjava.
Seven awards for a single series at one festival is not just a number from the jury’s records. It is also a sign of what domestic television production can currently do better than film. Tvrdjava took directing for Sasa Hajdukovic, screenplay for Goran Starcevic and Mirko Stojkovic, both lead acting awards for Ognjen Micovic and Darija Vucko, supporting actor for Nikola Pejakovic Kolja, a special acting achievement for Slavisa Curovic, and sound design for Aleksandar Protic. The film Zetva, despite taking the top prize, ended up with its technical awards scattered across other titles: production design for Mileva Ajnstajn went to Dejan Andjelkovic, editing for Duplikat is credited to Andrej Krizan, visual effects for the same film are shared by Maja Krzalic and Igor Mandic, and directing and screenplay for Motka went to Vasilije Nikitovic, whose score is by Marija Jelic and Igor Malesevic.
That sense of the series’ dominance came through most clearly in the acceptance speech of Nikola Pejakovic Kolja, who took the supporting actor award for his role as Momcilo in Tvrdjava.
“At this festival a quiet, slave’s battle is being waged for the soul of the Serbian people, who are once again threatened by a toothless, mangy jugovet,” Pejakovic said, dedicating the award to those who, like his character, guarded the family threshold, the hearth and the graves of their ancestors. “Some perished by dagger and pit, and some, like my Momcilo, by a neighbor’s bullet in the back.”
That speech leaves the usual register of a thank-you and steps onto ground that, judging by the opening remarks of Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic, the festival itself is building toward. Selakovic presented Kinski’s award, describing her as an actress of world rank who has worked with Wim Wenders, Roman Polanski and Paul Schrader over her career, a body of work that, in his words, connects European and American cinema, and he called NAFFIT a cornerstone of Serbia’s new cultural policy. Placed next to Pejakovic’s speech, that sentence shows NAFFIT is not building itself only as a ceremony that hands out statuettes, but also as a place where domestic production presents itself to the world, while in the same breath it is read through a national frame.
The craft awards, by contrast, carried a tone closer to the work itself than to politics. Danica Ristovski, awarded for her supporting role as the mother in Zvaces se Varvara, summed up that tone most precisely.
“Art imitates life through special mirrors, and those mirrors are all the human souls who take part in front of and behind the camera with their knowledge and passion,” Ristovski said, thanking screenwriter Milos Radovic and director Dejan Zecevic.
Cinematography for Zvaces se Varvara went to Dusan Joksimovic, makeup for the same series to Tanja Vidanovic, while costume design for Crna svadba and sound design for Tvrdjava went to Kristina Kostic and Aleksandar Protic respectively.
What remains after an evening like this is not the list of winners, however long it runs, but the picture of where the festival sees itself: between a guest from Hollywood who brings glamour to the ceremony and a domestic war drama that walked off with nearly everything there was to take. Whether NAFFIT can hold both ends of that picture without one crowding out the other will only be shown by its next editions, but its third ceremony suggests it is at least trying.
