The press conference was held today in Široki Brijeg on the occasion of the opening of the 16th Mediterranean Film Festival – documentary film festival, which takes place from 26 to 29 August.

Tomislav Topić, director of the festival, Robert Bubalo, producer of the festival, Lavinija Tadić on the behalf of HT Eronet as the general sponsor, Zdenko Jurilj, director of the films ‘Da capo’, ‘Oh, My Home’ and co-director of the film ‘Herzegovina’, directors of the film ‘Untameable Cardinal’ Mirela and Ivan Cigić, Lucy Eagleson, leader of the MFF workshop, Tyler Gunderson, film producer, post production lead at YouTube Space and leader of the MFF workshop and workshop assistants Hilary Morefield and Skylar Economy were present at the press conference and informed the public about the festival, official competition program, off program, workshops and other events within the festival.

“We have lifted this year’s Festival to a higher level, that is for sure, and what I am really proud of are the film workshops, which are expanded this year, in terms of time and number of people. Another great contribution of this Festival definitely is the fact that year after year we have kept the trend of bringing three to five films of local authors to our audience”, said the director of Mediterranean Film Festival and whished a warm welcome to the guests and a lot of fun at this year’s Festival. Lavinija Tadić from the Corporative communications department of HT Eronet pointed that the Mediterranean Film Festival represents one of the biggest film projects in Herzegovina and wider that gives HT Eronet a possibility of contribution to the community which it works in.

“HT Eronet has been supporting Mediterranean Film Festival for 11 years now, and in the past few years we have been the general sponsor. During the Festival we ensure the WiFi connection in the Festival press centre, and this year, in cooperation with our contractors, we are ensuring a valuable award, a mobile phone LG G3, which will go to the lucky one that will vote for the best film in the category of the Audience award. We are very happy that we are enriching our partnership from year to year and that we are becoming mutually recognizable”, said Tadić. Robert Bubalo, the festival producer, also addressed to the media representatives and referred to the films in the program.

“We are not forcing a large number of films at this year’s Festival, but the ones we screen are the first rate. Our partners are the great brands like Eronet, Beck’s, Jack Daniels, and from this year the biggest world television network HBO is with us too”, pointed Bubalo and added that he is very happy that the MFF school has become recognizable in the world and from this year foreigners are taking part in it. The leader of the MFF workshop Lucy Eagleson said that after three years they have moved borders with their work, what is witnessed by the number of workshop attendees, among other things.

“I am very happy that this is our third year in a row here and that every year we have more and more young people applying. The children from nearby towns and other countries are coming to us, and this year we have had the chance to host young people from San Diego. The film we have recorded and created in this short period is called The Bridge, and we are talking about connection of languages, cultures and friendships in it”, said Lucy and added that she thinks they have done a good job and succeeded in transferring their idea to the big screen.

This year’s Mediterranean Film Festival will start on Wednesday 26th of August with the screening of “The Creator of the Jungle”, the film from the competition, within which we will screen 17 documentary films, seven in feature and ten in short documentary selection. The film from the MFF workshop will also be screened at the opening ceremony on 26th August. The film which was created by the high school students, attendees of these workshops, together with their colleagues, six young filmmaker students from the USA and under the leadership of Lucy Eagleson and Tyler Gunderson.

There will be five documentaries screened in the program of ‘Home authors’ and the Festival also brings ten animated films from NAFF, a friend festival from Neum. The thing that MFF is especially proud of is the cooperation with this year’s Festival partner, the most important world movie network HBO. In cooperation with HBO we will screen the Polish film ‘Deep Love’ within the program HBO Adria. Besides HBO, the 16th MFF is going to make another step forward and that is starting the open air cinema, where, with the support of the Operation Kino, two feature films will be screened. The closing film, from the Off program, will be the Oscar awarded documentary hit film ‘Citizenfour’, directed by Laura Poitras.