23/01/2024 - The festival founded by Emir Kusturica is ready to get its 2024 edition started in Drvengrad, Serbia, with Matteo Garrone’s Me Captain kicking off proceedings

Me Captain by Matteo Garrone

For its 17th iteration, Kustendorf will once again host auteurs, actors and musicians alongside film students from around the world in the Serbian mountains, starting on 23 January. The Kustendorf Film Festival – or, more precisely, the Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival – is a non-commercial, but distinguished and special, event that takes place at the end of January in the Serbian region of Mokra Gora. Amidst the snowy hills lies Drvengrad (or “Woodentown”), the site that festival founder and director Emir Kusturica shot his Life Is a Miracle at, which year after year welcomes distinguished guests, established filmmakers and newcomers with the same hospitality and love for cinema. At the festival’s opening, Kusturica traditionally welcomes the guests in accordance with traditional Serbian customs on the town square.

This year, some of the names whose work will be screened at Kustendorf include award-winning Italian director Matteo Garrone, whose Venice title (and Best Director winner) Me Captain [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] will open the Contemporary Trends section. Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Giacomo Abbruzzese
film profile] will close the section on Saturday 27 January. In the New Auteurs selection, the audience will get to see Sonya Karpunina’s Desperate for Marriage and A Gaza Weekend [+see also:
interview: Basil Khalil
film profile] by Basil Khalil, amongst others, while the programme is complemented by repertory screenings of films by the likes of Erich von Stronheim and Elia Kazan. The Kustendorf Competition programme, however, consists of short films by film students and self-taught filmmakers – 17 in total (chosen from among 536), from all over the world. The young auteurs will also partake in workshops with well-known filmmakers, fostering an intergenerational bond through cinephilia.

The 17th edition of the Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival takes place from 23-27 January.