Three films took home awards at the 38th Belgrade International Film Festival (Fest); two from Israel, demonstrating the overall strength and versatility of Israeli cinema as represented at the festival.  The film Levanon/Lebanon by writer/director Samuel Maoz won the FIPRESCI prize.  Well-deserved for an already accomplished film, whose tale of the horrors of war and the humanitarian costs certainly hit home in Serbia.

The Belgrade Film Journalists and Critics Association bestowed their “Nebojsa Djukelic” Award on the film Einaym Pekukhot/Eyes Wide Open by director Haim Tabakman.  Yet another fine Israeli film, to go along with writer/director Keren Yedaya’s Kalat Hayam/Jaffa, which certainly looks the part of a powerful masterpiece.  Both films examine transgressive sexual relationships; the former a homosexual affair, the latter one that crosses religious and national boundaries.  Both films end ambiguously, casting an uncertain light on the opinions of the directors as to the viability of these relationships.  In Eyes Wide Open one of the partners is forced to leave town, the other seen submerging himself underwater in the film’s final mysterious shot.  In Jaffa the final image is a high angle wide-shot of the Palestinian father on one edge of the frame, the Israeli mother on the other and their mixed-heritage daughter walking carefully along a wall in the middle – before the camera zooms in to a medium shot of the daughter, ultimately concluding in a freeze frame on her.  The silent expressiveness of this shot speaks volumes, its mise-en-scene a masterful construction.

In the “Europe Out of Europe” competitive program the award went to the Croatian film Metastaze/Metastasis by director Branko Schmidt, also confirming the prowess of the Croatian representation at the festival, though the film Vjerujem u andele/I Believe in Angels by writer/director Niksa Svilicic had more originality and heart in its conception.  Metastasis is a work of raw power that spoke more passionately and urgently about the current social situation in Croatia, a virtue that certainly cannot be discounted.  It strikes a cynical note by its conclusion, resulting in a troubling film; I Believe in Angels reaches an understandably more optimistic final tone, given its title, resulting in a film that is reassuring.  Yet and still, the edge went to the more engaged of the two films, a final stance one can admire in these closing moments of the 38th Belgrade International Film Festival.