– TAMING THE DARKNESS –
WHEN
16/17/18 June 2017 – Belgrade
WHERE
Amphitheater in front of the Museum of Yugoslavia, Botićeva 6
Debate program: CZKD, Birčaninova 6
PARTICIPANTS
Lamija Begagić, Svetlana Slapšak, Zoran Ferić, Ivan Ivanji, Srđan Karanović, Igor Štiks, Snježana Kordić, Erlend Lu, Dragan Markovina, Teofil Pančić, Borka Pavićević, Olja Savičević Ivančević, Sven Popović, Goran Tarlać, Slobodan Tišma, Lordan Zafranović and Aleksandar Zograf – Program moderators: Kruno Lokotar, Mima Simić, Vladimir Arsenić, Ivan Velisavljević and Dragan Kremer – KROKODIL Radio: Mjehur na mreži
The ninth edition of the KROKODIL Festival, under the title Taming the Darkness, was held on the 16th, 17th and 18th of June, 2017. The festival’s evening program on the 16th and 17th of June was traditionally held in the amphitheater in front of the Museum of Yugoslavia (Botićeva 6), while the daily-debate programs were held on the 17th and 18th of June at the Center for Cultural Decontamination (Birčaninova 21).
At this year’s festival, the audience had the opportunity to see the famous Norwegian writer Erlend Loe, a favorite of the local literary scene. Thanks to his recognizable ironic literary style, Erlend Loe has, in a very short period, become a cult Norwegian writer, as well as one of the most recognizable European authors today, with his books being translated to more than twenty languages.
From Prague, for the first sofa-interview of the KROKODIL Festival, we hosted Lordan Zafranović, one of the most controversial and provocative film directors of the famous Prague school.
On the second festival night, we spoke to another film director whose work is closely connected to the Prague film school, Srđan Karanović, about this work on film and television.
At this year’s festival KROKODIL, we presented the writer and peace activist Svetlana Slapšak, the winner of this year’s Vital award for her novel Ravnoteža.
The recognized novelist and dramatist Slobodan Šnajder read from his latest novel Doba mjedi, a great saga about the fate of Volksdeutsch community in the former Yugoslavia, for whom in 2016 he received the Meša Selimović award, one of the most important in the region.
Ivan Ivanji, who spent more than twenty years as Josip Broz Tito’s German translator, read from his latest novel Moj lepi život u paklu, in which he reflects on his life that began almost nine decades ago, in then Bečkerek, and the experience he had as a sixteen year old Jewish boy at the Buchenwald death camp.
The novel Pjevač u noći, a sophisticated love story, and at the same time, a serious critique of all our fascisms and fear of freedom, was written by award winning prose author and poet Olja Savičević Ivančević, another participant of this year’s festival KROKODIL. This novel was recently published in Serbia and the author presented this work as well as her poetry collection, Mamasafari.
Lamija Begagić is one of the most renowned young authors from Bosnia and Herzegovina. At this year’s festival KROKODIL she presented her first novel U zoni, a story about the life of a professional sportswoman who ends her career at the age of 35 and the new world she tries to create around her and in her.
Zoran Ferić read from his novel Na osami pored mora which deals with maturation and eroticism of the adulthood of Yugoslav hedonistic socialism. Feric’s latest novel in Serbia was published by the publishing house Booka.
As a part of this year’s festival, we also presented Ogledala Lune, a book about one of the most significant bands of the early 80s, which is finally giving this music band its well deserved position. Apart from Slobodan Tišma, the front-man and singer of the band, writer and NIN Award winner, the authors Goran Tarlać, Predrag Buca Popović and Saša Rakezić will also discuss the book.
As a part of his lecture, Aleksandar Zograf took us through the world of small discoveries (Mala otkrića) which is the title of his latest collection of short, poetic and documentary comics he regularly draws for the magazine Vreme.
We also took a look back at the work of Biljana Jovanović, one of the pioneers of feminist Yugoslav literature of the seventies and her recently republished cult novels Pada Avala and Psi i ostali.
KROKODIL’s residence program for writers has been active since 2012 and so far has hosted 55 writers from eighteen countries. Through a conversation with our current guest at the residency, the young Croatian author Sven Popović, we focused on the importance of this program for continuous cultural exchange not only within the region but also across the whole of Europe.
Along with sofa-interviews, performances, readings, as well as musical and acting performances, festival KROKODIL organized again this year various debates during which we tackled the most current socio-political topics from the perspective of arts and culture. The debate program was held on the 17th and 18th of June at the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade.
For the third consecutive year, the festival had a humanitarian character. The partner for this year’s KROKODIL festival is Hemofarm foundation, with whom we teamed up in 2016 regarding the project PRODUŽI ŽIVOT, with the goal of raising awareness of the importance of organ transplantation and donation. This year, we will draw attention to the necessity of organ donation and invite festival-goers to sign donor cards.
Program moderators: Kruno Lokotar, Mima Simić, Vladimir Arsenić, Ivan Velisavljević, Igor Štiks and Dragan Kremer.
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Festival KROKODIL 2017 is supported by: Hemofarm fondacija, književna mreža Traduki, S. Fischer Stiftung, forumZFD and NORLA.
Media partners: Danas, Nedeljnik and Radio Laguna.
