UnderhillFest is dedicated to feature-length documentaries created in small cinematography and independent productions, films that have imposed themselves with innovation, ideas and strength of their stories. UnderhillFest as such represents a real challenge in Montenegro, in terms of program and production.
Our festival is in every sense a humane and socially engaged project: separated from institutionalized frameworks, open, somewhat alternative, and rebellious, intended exclusively for a free, curious, and creative visitor who loves film art and recognizes the seriousness of the problems documentaries deal with. Our festival has managed to find its way to its authentic audience, from regular documentary lovers to students eager to learn about this film expression, to the professional public that contributes to collective film education.
Character Dandelion
Dandelion appears everywhere: in inaccessible areas, in mountains, and meadows, but also in the middle of a concrete jungle, in narrow streets, sidewalks, and corners of city districts. Just like the topics that documentaries deal with. Our trademark, dandelion, also symbolizes the beginning of something new and refreshing just like UnderhillFest.
And finally, the dandelion fully depicts the character of our festival because it symbolizes the ability to survive under the most unfavorable conditions.
Program concept
What have we done so far? UnderhillFest is a carefully envisioned festival in accordance with the set goals. The festival consists of three programs: the main film program and the accompanying educational and music programs. The film program includes international and regional competition selection, as well as out-of-competition films. The film selection process lasts throughout the year and includes visits to European festivals where UnderhillFest representatives are informed about current trends in the world of documentaries and watch the latest films. During the nine years of its existence, the festival has hosted important authors and filmmakers from the region and the world, and we have provided Montenegrin audiences with exciting film evenings with talks, discussions and debates about films and the “world” that these films portrayed. Starting from the idea that Podgorica, ie. Montenegro needs a cultural event of this kind, that will be recognized in Europe, that for various reasons the film is still on the margins of social attention and despite all obstacles and lack of funds, with knowledge, skills and will we can create something beautiful and significant, we made Underhill Fest an unavoidable date in the cultural calendar of Podgorica. The festival will consist of five programs this year: Film, Educational, In Focus (selection of films dedicated to women’s rights and the position of women in the modern world), “Docuschool” – a documentary workshop for young people, high school students and final grades of primary school.
The film program includes international and regional competition selection, as well as out-of-competition films. In the previous nine editions of the festival, the film program screened more than 260 films from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Italy, Canada, Romania, the USA, the UK, Ukraine, Cambodia, India, Latvia, etc., including those awarded at major and significant film festivals around the world.
The awards are decided by a three-member jury consisting of prominent artists and filmmakers from Montenegro, the region and the world. The DANDELION award was designed by Roman Đuranović, an artist from Montenegro.
The educational program of the festival is dedicated to students, young creators, professionals and the widest audience that enjoys the specifics of this film genre. The aim of the lectures and workshops is to introduce the participants to the phenomenon of documentary film: about creative, organizational and financial processes in contemporary documentary film, how it’s made, how to find topics, the role of the author, etc.
The cooperation between Crossmedia Agency Ltd (formerly Ja@TeeVee) and UnderhillFest arose from the need to raise the organization and realization of the festival to a higher level in the technical sense. Crossmedia agency has exceptional technical and creative capacities, and in addition to the above, it will greatly help in creating a new image of the festival.
Goals
UnderhillFest, with its specific goals, responds in a comprehensive and high-quality way to the demands of the audience, professionals and students, the widest audience and fans of the seventh art. In this sense, the project contains projections of the latest achievements of documentary production from the world and the region, creations that have achieved great success at the international level. We offer the audience in Podgorica an exclusive opportunity to watch Oscar-winning films on the screen, among other things, as well as those, less commercial but equally good, those that speak about important social issues through creative recording of the reality. The special goal of the “UnderhillFest” project is to systematically present the Montenegrin documentary film by organizing retrospectives and showing special editions. We also want to present an international contemporary documentary production to the Montenegrin audience. With this project and engagement, we want to motivate enthusiasts to make their own films about sociological issues and problems that every society and individual has.
The specific objectives of the project are:
- Integration of documentary cinematography, considering the process
- Encouraging dialogue and exchange of artistic experiences between documentarians from different countries;
- Discovering the possibilities of documentary cinematography, presenting the history and development of the documentary, as well as presenting the creators and their most interesting achievements;
- Organizing various discussions taking into consideration the place documentary film occupies in contemporary cultural life.
Importance
The creators of documentaries deal with the problems of social life and the human psyche, interesting biographies, artists, and various phenomena – therefore such films have a response from a most diverse audience.
One of the significant contributions of UnderhillFest to the development of Montenegrin culture is certainly providing the opportunity for the Montenegrin audience to keep up with the latest achievements in the production of documentaries and to point out the great power that this film expression has in identifying social problems. Furthermore, reminding of the Montenegrin documentary tradition, of the great artists of Montenegrin film within the retrospective of Montenegrin documentary films that we organized in cooperation with the Montenegrin Cinematheque.
The significance that UnderhillFest has for Montenegrin culture is to animate local, young filmmakers to create, to articulate their ideas through a documentary and to point out the problems that surround them.
Target group and attendance
The target group includes all admirers of documentary film, such as students, professionals, journalists, and theorists, but also the widest audience.
- Our goal is to animate as many people of different ages and interests, students and future professionals, to get involved in creative thinking and creation.
- We also aim to include a large number of students from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, the Faculty of Visual Arts, and Political Science, as we did in previous years in the organization of the festival.
- In recent years, we have had an average of about 200 visitors per night. In total, during the festival, screenings, lectures and concerts were attended by about 5,000 people.
- We expect a great response from students and professionals who will participate in workshops on documentary film, as well as in the conference.
Project sustainability
With this project, we will raise the awareness of the audience and encourage them to think about the current social problems these films deal with. We expect that we will largely animate future filmmakers to point out through their achievements the issues and problems in their environment, which concern the protection of human rights, and environmental protection, but also the socio-psychological problems of a modern person. As in previous years, we expect a great response from the audience, which is already accustomed to pleasant movie nights under the open sky in Podgorica.
- We also expect great media attention, as we had in previous years. This project mapped Podgorica as a festival city, in the region and beyond. As UnderhillFest “grows”, the city of Podgorica itself has economic benefits, because festivals attract a large number of professionals and admirers of film art.
- It is an important fact that this project hires a number of future professionals.