OFFICIAL SELECTION
PROGRAM
14th Balkan Nordic Film Festival DOC.SHORT 2025
20-21 december
på ABF Stockholm, Identitet, och föreningar i Solna och Södertälje!
Conventions of Contracts/Συμβάσεις Έργων
Greece, 2024, documentary, 26’21’’, with English subtitles
Director Stefanos Mondelos
A former construction worker uncovers a conspiracy to cheat on public funds using photos taken on construction sites. This fictional short story is inspired by found photos and revolves around construction companies, public works, and artistic direction.
Cast: Spyros Zoupanos
Producer: Petros Kontos, Nadia Dermatopoulou, Stefanos Mondelos
Babini devetini
Bulgaria, 2024, documentary, 38’58’’, Bulgarian with English subtiles
Directors: Daniell Tahor, Ana-Mariya Georgieva
Remembering the past with the elderly residents of a Northwestern village in Bulgaria entails a generational contemplation of the future. Following the pace of everyday practices and conversations, the film observes the local, visible and invisible, political, social and environmental changes. Seeking to bridge the gap between the city and the village, the modern and not modern, the local and the global, two friends apply hope to the act of storytelling.
Producer: Daniell Tahor
Il passaggio di Ahmet
Italy, 2025, short, 17’24’’, Croatian, Italian, Serbian with English subtiles
Director: Aksinja Bellone
Four older men, friends, meet in a tavern in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1999, under NATO bombing.
It is an opportunity to recall another war, when they were taken prisoner during World War II by the occupying Italian army and brought to the prison camp at the Casermette of Colfiorito, in Umbria. They managed to escape in 1943—one thousand of them—eventually joining either the Italian or Yugoslav partisans.
But the memories are not only tragic; after all, they were very young, and the recollection of the great escape fills them with joy, albeit tinged with irony and sadness. They remember with particular emotion how Romani prisoners played a key role in the success of the escape, thanks to their originality and creativity.
Cast: Moni Ovadia
Producer: Tamara Bellone
The Thirst for Land/Mann Aasai
India, 2024, short film, 23’, Tamil with English subtitles
Director: Arivarasan
A church sexton who has devoted his entire life to the service of God sets out to fulfill his dying mother’s last wish – a small plot for her burial site in the church’s cemetery. This first ever wish of his leads him to confront stark social disparities, question his belief and challenges his very understanding of the world.
Producer: Kalaiselvan Sivaji, Ashwin, Rajendran
Човек лавина/The Avalanche Man
Montenegro, 2025, Documentary 83’, with English subtitles
Director: Slobodanka Radun
This honest portrait of Dragoljub Đuričić, one of the best EX Yugoslavian musicians, drummer himself, reveals a story of the rock scene and its beginnings in Montenegro during ‘60s and development in Balkan region during ‘70s and ‘80s. Đuričič was a proud Montenegrin who was born in Cuce, a small village in Cetinje, but his childhood and teenage period he spent in Herceg Novi. After moving to Belgrade, Serbia, his career kicked off. He was playing with various bends in the region. Some years in Skopje, Northern Macedonia as a drummer of famous rock band ,Leb i sol”. As an innovative musician Đuričić brings drums in the center forming the very first Balkan percussionist orchestra The Balkan avalanche. His fantastic performances and great energy made him a symbol of protests against the Milošević regime at the end of 20th Century. A man of ideas and great energy left his legacy to many of his students and generations of drummers to come.
Scenario / Screenplay: Jasmina Karajlović
Producenti / Producers: Predrag Karlo Kalezić, Jasmina Karajlović
Production company: Montenegro Max Film
Joymakers
Serbia, 2024, documentary, 45’, Serbian with English subtiles
Director: Jelena Radenović
“Joymakers” is a captivating documentary that delves into the lives of Roma trumpeters in the south of Serbia, showcasing their incredible talent and passion for music. However, it also unveils the harsh reality they face as musicians and Romi. Passed down through generations, the art of trumpet playing is a double-edged sword, as improper techniques and excessive air use take a toll on their health, often leading to lung diseases. What appears as pure joy and happiness to the audience is simultaneously their sole source of income and, at times, a source of pain.
At the heart of the film is Maksut Maksutović Maksa, the renowned teacher of Roma trumpeters, who crafted authentic jazz arrangements and provided livelihoods for many musicians. When US professor Nada Miljković, a friend of Maksa, stumbles upon and meets his student and successor Milan donja Nikolić, she embarks on a mission to share their story. Their goal is to establish a school where gifted children can learn to play properly and kickstart their musical careers more easily. With this noble intention, she travels from California to Southern Serbia. “Joymakers” calls on us to embrace the joy these musicians bring into our lives and help them survive in the harsh world they navigate.
Cast: Milan donja Nikolić
Producer: Nada Miljković
After Party/ Poslije zabave
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2025, documentary, 29’26’’, Serbian with English subtiles
Director: Stefan Tomić
We follow Stevo Grabovac, a retail clerk, through ten days before the announcement of the winner of the prestigious literary award for which he was nominated for the second time in his life.
Producer: Nikola Đaković
Starac i njegov san / The oldman and his dream
Bosnia and Herzegovina, documentary, 26’8’’, with English subtitles
Director: Duško Mazalica
Nikola is an elderly man who lives alone in the village and maintains the cemetery. All his relatives are buried in the cemetery and he has not been able to walk to it for a long time. The road is steep and there is snow. He decides to buy a horse so that, when harnessed, he can go to the cemetery with it. In his search for the horse, he encounters many obstacles and interesting situations.
Cast: Nikola Milašinović, Mile Mandić Žuna, Gojko Mazalica, Drago Mazalica, Goran Trkulja
Producer: Duško Mazalica, Jovan Narančić
Доброчинитељ играно-документарни филм о Сими Игуманову / Benefactor – a documentary film about Sima Igumano
Serbia, 2024, documentary 45’, with English text
Director: Boško Milosavljević
Festival guest ONLINE Milan Kićevac – producer
The birth of the great Serbian benefactor coincided with the year of the First Serbian Uprising. After a difficult childhood in Prizren, Sima Andrejević, a boy who grew up without parents, alongside his older brother, tries to start his own business. Difficult circumstances, as well as the pressures from the Arnauts and Turks, force him to seek justice and happiness in Constantinople. In the big city, where he spent ten years, an event will take place that will decisively influence his great progress in business – which he will later develop in Russia. The film “Benefactor” (2024, 45′) shows the most important moments in the life of Sima Andrejević Igumanov – and the path he took to reach his goal … Which was a magnificent endowment in Prizren… And a grand palace in Belgrade.
Cast: The narrators are Nenad Jezdić (voice of Sime Igumanov) and Viktor Savić, Sima Andrejević Igumanov – Slobodan Tešić, Consul Evgeny Timayev – Aleksandar Matić, Consul Ivan Jastrebov – Ilija Stojimirov
Producer: Milan P. Kićevac
Mother of Rose/Майката на Роза
Bulgaria, 2025, short film, 41’15’’, Bulgarian with English subtitles
Director: Kameliya P. Petrova
“Not can I, but do I want to be a mother”. That’s Yana’s question.
Fleeing their unsuccessful attempts to have a child, she and Alex decide to live with his grandmother, where a pastoral rural life awaits — strange neighbors, karakondzhuli, and navyatsi. Beneath what Yana dismisses as “old wives’ tales” lurk nightmares buried deep in her urban mind — about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.
Is becoming a mother a guarantee of happiness? Will it make her complete?
Cast: Lora Dekova, Anika Alexandrova, Yanina Kasheva, Zhanet Keranova, Anna Bankina
Producer: Krastyo Lambev
Choice
North Macedonia, 2025, short film, 17’, Macedonian with English subtitles
Director: Marko Crnogorski
A young mother and her toddler face a devastating reality when a new law bans her scheduled abortion.
Cast: Sara Sandeva, Eva Velic, Sara Anastasovska
Producer: Marko Crnogorski, Naum Doksevski, Jana Paunoska
The Shape That’s Left Behind
Slovenia, Belgium, 2025, short film 13’, with English subtitles
Director Eva Čeh
In a climate-changed Brussels, where Christmas has become a summer affair, a grieving mother’s attempt to revive snowy memories for her son forces her to confront the intertwined loss of her husband and the disappearance of winter.
Niewypowiedziane / Unspoken
Poland 2024, documentary 52’, poland with English subtitles
Director: Maciej Adamek
It is a portrait of 26-year-old Matthew – a young man who stutters and wants to realize his childhood dream. He wants to become a Polish champion in acrobatics.
Producer
Rovački Ostrog,
Montenegro, Hungary, 2024, documentary 22’, with English subtitles
Director and producer Milan Kićevac – festival guest
En monastery in Montenegro.
Producer Milan Kićevac
Living Among the Dead
USA, Serbia, 2025, documentary 22’, on English
Director Ada Rajkovic
A young American filmmaker raised by Yugoslav immigrants travels to the former Yugoslavia more than thirty years after its collapse, searching for the homeland her family never spoke of— only to uncover a hidden fragment of their past that becomes a key to deciphering her own fractured identity.
Producer: Ana Rajkovic