01 Oct 12th UnderhillFest Awards

The jury of the 12th UnderhillFest, consisting of: Lejla Dedić – producer of AJB and selector of AJB Doc, Dragan Nikolić – director and Veliša Popović – producer, decided that the Dandelion award in the INTERNATIONAL category goes to the film Taming the Garden directed by Salomé Jashi.

“There are more and more good documentaries, but when one of them succeeds through its story, especially in pictures, which is the case here, to show a bigger and deeper metaphor of our global moment in which we live, then we can confirm with great pleasure that it is not only a good documentary, but an exceptional film. With minimised observational means, “Taming the Garden” brings an incredible story of a man and nature, nature and human society, the rich and the poor, migration, and of a small green dot of hope on the endless path of all our desires, possibilities, ambitions, hopes and suffering, a modern documentary fairy tale about trees that along with their roots broke away from their native soil, and set off into the unknown, in search of a better world. ”

А three-member jury decided that SPECIAL MENTION in the INTERNATIONAL category goes to the film Insider (The Mole Agent) directed by Maita Alberdi.

“The excellence of the narrative structure, besides the setting of the story and plot makes us believe for a moment that we are watching a witty feature film, but quickly we become overwhelmed with emotions and realize that for love, as for all other emotions that we experience with protagonists of this film, there is no age limit. This story about a spy in a nursing home affects everyone in an extremely direct way, because it talks about the path that we take with all our goals and desires that we carry and strive for, our purpose in this life has some other plans for us. If we succeed, like the protagonist of this story, but also as a successful documentary director, which director of this film undoubtedly is, to recognize that moment and to surrender to it completely, then we are not far away from the very center of the target”.

DANDELION award in the REGIONAL category went to the film NUN OF YOUR BUSINESS directed by Ivana Marinić Kragić.

“Often, topics that deal with the issues of equal rights and freedoms for all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, end up on that first step, the very topic they deal with. Ivana Marinić Kragić is one brave and above all witty woman from Split, who successfully overcomes all possible traps of this topic in an exquisite way! With an innovative, fresh and modern director approach, she caresses us all the time and gently makes us laugh about the deepest emotional drama which her protagonists go through together with her. A witty and genius film about nuns and their search for God, through which they finally find love and each other!”

The SPECIAL MENTION of the jury in the REGIONAL category was given to the film Recipe for Hate, directed by Filip Čolović.

“The urgency and importance of this topic, as well as the courage of the director to talk about his deepest pain, and the heaviest loss, the loss of his brother, leave us breathless, and evokes the deepest emotions in us. Through similar losses and sufferings of other people, we are not left hopeless that changing the state of our societies is impossible, but on the contrary, this film awakens dormant resistance in us, that makes us want to cope with the darkness from which all our social evil is coming, and let us defeat it once and for all. ”

All decisions were made unanimously by the jury.

The audience award of the 12th UnderhillFest went to the film Twins Woven from Dreams, directed by Sead Šabotić and Lee Vahrušev, with an average grade of 4.9.