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Aleksandar Lifka Award for Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi

02.09.2020.

Aleksandar Lifka Award for Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi

The  European Film Festival Palić traditionally awards the Aleksandar Lifka Award to prominent national and foreign filmmakers, who have made an exceptional contribution to European cinema, leaving an indelible mark. This year's winner of the award in the category of foreign filmmakers is the legendary Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, who received one of the most prestigious awards in the world of independent film - the Golden Bear at the Berlinale for her latest film On Body and Soul. Two years ago, this author was a guest of the  Palić Festival, as the jury president for the Main Competition Program - Official Selection.

On the occasion of the Aleksandar Lifka Award, Ildiko Enyedi stated that it was a great honor for her to receive this recognition this year. "When I received the information about the Award, I was sitting in a mixing studio in Berlin, where I was making the last steps on a three-year journey, the post-production of my new film. This is a particularly sensitive phase in creation. The tension grows as the moment of appearing in front of the audience gets closer. The message of the festival caught me in the middle of this period and warmed my heart. It meant a lot to me what the Festival thinks of me and my work with respect, "said Enyedi.

"Being a filmmaker means floating in the middle of the unknown and undefined, it means reinventing yourself with every film you make. You disappear into the tunnel of intensive work when you invest all your energy in one project without knowing how it will be accepted by the world. The Award served me as an anchor in this long float in the middle of the unknown. It means that I exist, that my existence on Earth makes sense," she added.

About her previous experiences at the European Film Festival, Ildiko Enyedi says: "It is a festival with a homely and cordial atmosphere, characterized by high quality. Such a combination is not easy to achieve. There is something very honest about Palić. We, who come here, feel it in many ways, in every detail, and for that we are extremely grateful."

Enyedi announces that she will finish her new film in October this year, but that she is not in a situation to plan the premiere. "After we finish it, we will sit and wait. It is illusory to plan anything at this time", she says, adding that every difficult situation is also a chance. "We have a chance to learn to appreciate the company of others, the magic of hugs, what it's like to be part of the audience at a concert. It is worth living, experiencing the processes that are happening around us, but also those within us before we tell new stories. I am learning to be in an intimate relationship with myself - one often forgets that one is the closest person to oneself", says the renowned author about the impact of the pandemic on our lives.

Director Ildiko Enjedi was born in Budapest in 1955. She began her career as a conceptual artist before she started to make short and feature films as a screenwriter and director. At the very beginning of her career, she was awarded the Golden Camera for Best Debutant in Cannes in 1989 for the film My Twentieth Century. In the same year, she began teaching at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest, where she defended her doctorate in 2011. She shot seven feature films, and directed the HBO Europe series Therapy from 2012 to 2017. She is currently working on her new film A Tale of My Wife based on a novel by Milan Fisto. She has won more than 40 international awards for her work.

The Aleksandar Lifka Award has been established since 2000 for the contribution to European cinema, and every year Palić European Film Festival assigns this Award to one foreign and one Serbian laureate. The winner of the award from Serbia for this year is our famous actress Mirjana Karanović. A homage program dedicated to the laureates of the Aleksandar Lifka Award will traditionally be screened at the festival.

This year, the twenty-seventh edition of the Palić European Film Festival will be held from September 12 to 18, organized by the Open University Subotica.

Photo: Hanna Csata

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