Nikola Ležaić

Nikola Ležaić (born August 6, 1981) is a Serbian film director/screenwriter/film producer.

Being very much into alternative culture since his teens, he used to draw comics with the local comic group called Smog. Co-founded literary movement called Metasynchrism. Graduated at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He is mostly known for his first feature film Tilva Roš produced by Film House Kiselo Dete. It is praised as arguably the most internationally acclaimed Serbian film of the last decade and it earned Nikola an EFA Discovery Award Nomination in 2011.

Since 2009, he is the owner of the production company Smog Entertainment formed as a sister company of Film House Kiselo Dete. As the company's website says, Smog is the result of Nikola's urge to produce quirky moviegoer films that don't fit any profile. Smog rather chooses a lifeful mountain path than a safe freeway.

Currently he is working as a producer on two projects, Neposlušni directed by Mina Đukić and Pogledaj me, Kusturice by Uroš Tomić. Both projects are planned to be shot in 2012. He is also preparing his own sophomore script.

Nikola

Nikola (Cyrillic: Никола, Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [nǐkola]) is a unisex given name, derived from Greek Nikolaos (Νικόλαος), common in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. Besides the name "Nikola", in Macedonia there is a name "Nikolče" (Николче), which is a diminutive of the name "Nikola". In Poland, it is used as a female name, as is done with Nicola in the UK and Germany.

People

Tilva Roš

Tilva Roš is a 2010 Serbian coming of age drama following a group of skaters from Bor, a small mining town in eastern part of Serbia, during their first summer after finishing high school.

Plot

Bor, once the largest copper mine, but now just the biggest hole in Europe. Small union protest over the mine privatization is taking place. The plot revolves around Toda and Stefan, two best friends, skaters, who spend their first summer after finishing high school. Stefan's going to Belgrade to the university in fall. Toda says he wouldn't apply to the university even if he had the money. They spend time shooting "Jackass-like" videos they call Crap and hanging out with their friends and Dunja, their friend who came back from France for her holidays. Toda and Stefan get into a quiet battle for her attention and in that strange relationship of dying friendship and rivalry they try to get ahead of each other. Toda gets injured during one of the stunts and goes to a hospital where he learns that he has to apply to the employment bureau in order to get health insurance since he’s not a student any more. There he gets a counselor and has to attend meetings on which he will learn new methods of job application. That’s how Toda is forced into the bureaucratic world of adults. Spending more time at the counselor’s than with his friends makes him annoyed and his quarrels with Stefan slowly become more violent. But when the small union protest evolves into a huge riot their destructiveness will tie them together once again.

Film festival

A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some festivals focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., horror film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events. Some film historians do not consider Film Festivals as official releases of film, like Jerry Beck. The best known film festivals are the Venice Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and the Berlin International Film Festival, the latter being the largest film festival worldwide, based on attendance. The Venice Film Festival is the oldest major festival. The Melbourne International Film Festival is the largest film festival in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the oldest in the world. A 2013 study found 3,000 active films festivals worldwide—active defined as having held an event in the previous 24 months.

Cinema of Serbia

The Cinema of Serbia comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of Serbia or by Serbian filmmakers abroad.

Serbia (both as an independent country and as of former Yugoslavia) has been home to many internationally acclaimed films and directors.

Serbian theatre and cinema

Serbia has a well-established theatrical tradition with many theatres. The Serbian National Theatre was established in 1861 with its building dating from 1868. The company started performing opera from the end of the 19th century and the permanent opera was established in 1947. It established a ballet company.

Bitef, Belgrade International Theatre Festival, is one of the oldest theatre festivals in the world. New Theatre Tendencies is the constant subtitle of the Festival. Founded in 1967, Bitef has continually followed and supported the latest theater trends. It has become one of five most important and biggest European festivals. It has become one of the most significant culture institutions of Serbia.