Skopje, 7 June 2024 (MIA) — The 14th Philosophical Film Festival, taking place June 7 through 13, will open with a screening of "Close Your Eyes" (2023) by Victor Erice.

It is the first of the five films in the official competition for the Golden Owl award. They have been selected by Kiril Trajchev. The selection includes "Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World" (2023) by Radu Jude, "Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell" (2023) by Thiên Ân Phạm, "Terrestrial Verses" (2023) by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami, and "Citizen Saint" (2023) by Tinatin Kajrishvili.

This year's festival will also offer 16 short films competing for its Golden Owl award. They were selected by Dejan Zdravkov. The shorts were produced in 2022 and 2023 and most of them premiered at international film festivals such as Cannes and Venice. 

According to festival director Ana Dishlieska-Mitova at a press conference Monday, this year's films' topics range from memories and identity, social criticism of capitalism or authoritarianism, power and control in societies to themes of faith, hope and death.

The Golden Owl awards for a feature film and for a short film will be announced on June 13, and the festival will also announce the winner of its Stefan Sidovski-Sido award.

The winners will be decided by a three-member panel of judges consisting of Comparative Literature university professor Slavica Srbinovska, Serbian philosopher Ivan Milenković, and Macedonian film and theater director Jane Spasikj.

As part of the festival, Milenković on June 10 will give a lecture on Kant's unsocial sociability (Ungesellige Geselligkeit). He will also discuss the film "The Beauty of Vice" (1986) by Živko Nikolić on June 11.

Slobodanka Markovska from the Faculty of Philosophy will discuss "Laurence Anyways" (2012) by Xavier Dolan, and the film "The Gold Rush" (1925) by Charlie Chaplin will be accompanied by a lecture by US philosopher Stephen Friedman.

In addition, the festival will showcase six video essays by experimental film pioneer Maya Deren, including her 1943 debut "Meshes of the Afternoon." Also screened will be her "At Land" (1944), "A Study in Choreography for Camera" (1945), "Ritual in Transfigured Time" (1946), "Meditation on Violence" (1948), and "The Very Eye of Night" (1955).

The festival will also present four video essays selected by Ivana Mirchevska, including "Peripheria" (2023) by Beau Maibaum; "To the Earthen Red" (2022) by Nika Pećarina; "The Mechanics of Fluids" (2022) by Gala Hernández López; and "Deep in The Eye and The Belly: Chapter I" (2023) by Sam Williams.

Аhead of the festival, organizers held several film philosophy workshops for elementary school children and high school students, including one on "The Aesthetics of Film Language."

The Philosophical Film Festival is organized by the Philosophical Society of Macedonia in cooperation with the state university's Faculty of Philosophy. mr/