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Oasis by Ivan Ikić - the best Serbian film according to FIPRESCI Serbia

20.07.2021.

Ivan Ikić's film Oasis was proclaimed the best Serbian film by the Serbian Section of the International Federation of Critics (FIPRESCI). The Award was presented for the first time on July 19, at the Palić European Film Festival, by the newly established Association of Serbian Film Festivals - AFIFS composed of seven film festivals in Serbia: European Film Festival Palić, Film Screenplay Festival (Vrnjačka Banja), Acting Festival - Film Encounters (Niš), Leskovac International Film Directing Festival - LIFFE, Author's Film Festival (Belgrade), Šumadija International Debut Film Festival (Kragujevac) and Picture in Motion Festival (Novi Sad).

Milan Nikodijević, a member of the FIPRESCI Serbia jury that decided on the best film, presented the award to the film's producer Milan Stojanović (Sense Production) and director Ivan Ikić. Material value of the award is 300,000 dinars.

During the award ceremony, Milan Stojanović, producer of the Oasis, said: "I am thankful to the Association of Film Festivals for this wonderful award, to the FIPRESCI for choosing our film, but also to the Palić European Film Festival for its wonderful hospitality. Ivan’s and mine first film Barbarians had its premiere here in 2014 and then also won an award. This year the film is not at the Festival, but it won the award anyway. It's a big pleasure".

The jury's explanation (Milan Nikodijević, Ivan Karl and Borislav Anđelić) stated that director Ivan Ikić "skillfully articulates the acting of his nonactors in an authorially exciting and aesthetically convincing way", and that this is a kind of authorial experiment in which Ikić "escape to freedom of his young heroes, a deficient topic in Serbian film about young people with special needs, leads through delicate paths of self-destruction around which he weaves the poetics of cruelty and painful reality of Oasis with bold solutions and authorial subtlety.” The jury further stated that this film "according to its authorial approach and high aesthetic and moral values, is this year’s best Serbian film, which puts it in a high position among Serbian film works of the last decade”.

Oasis, by director and screenwriter Ivan Ikić, premiered last year at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, where it won the award for Best European Film in the Venice Days section, awarded by the Europe Cinemas network. It premiered in Serbia at FEST, where it won the award for the Best Film in the Main Competition Program. The story follows three people in an institution for young people with special needs. Maria soon befriends the equally fearless girlfriend Dragana, and when it becomes clear that they are both in love with the withdrawn young man Robert, their relationship gradually grows into a dangerous game of blindfolds with the goal of winning him over. The main roles are played by Mariana Novakov, Tijana Markovi, Valentino Zenuni, Milica Đinđić, Saša Strugar, Marusa Majer, Goran Bogdan.