The most visited and most interesting are film and music festivals in Serbia, which are mostly held during the summer months
As an older art than film, we will give preference first to music and first to give a brief overview of music events in Serbia – the festivals.
EXIT festival
Whether you have any musical taste, love our traditional or somewhat firmer, more avant-garde sound, in the old legendary folk and the one who listens to popular music, the honorary first place in this blog, accidentally or intentionally, we give not the oldest but still the world’s most famous music festival. in Serbia – EXIT Festival. The EXIT festival originated from year 2000 from a student movement that was dissatisfied with the situation in the country, a movement that wanted change, new life, new energy. Unofficially called EXIT 00, it lasted for 100 days, it took place on the left bank of the Danube, where countless concerts with local performers and film screenings were held. The following year, he was transferred to the fortress on Petrovaradin, where even today, every summer, always in the first half of July, one of the largest music festivals in Europe is held – EXIT. In the past, for more than twenty years, a huge number of the world’s most famous names in the music scene, from punk to world music, pop to trash metal, the most virtuoso electronic music magicians to hip-hop performers have performed on numerous stages on the fortress. Various names have been spared, here are just a few: Prodigy, Jamiroquai, Iggy Pop, Slayer, Faith no More, Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers, Chemical Brothers, Motorhead, Massive Attack, Guns n ‘Roses, Snoop Dog, Sex Pistols, Cypress Hill , Billy Idol, The Cure and many, many others.
Something that was ever performed once in Novi Sad back in 2002 is the KAOS night project of Adam F, located on the main stage of the festival, which was given a cell evening. The performance lasted from 23:00 to 07:15 the next morning. For each other, the greatest legends of the Drum n ’Bass world scene lined up: Grooverider, Adam F, DJ Hype, Bad Company and Andy C.History remembers and all of us who attended that unforgettable July night on the „fortress“.
Guca Music Festival
Or, as it is officially called, the Dragačevo Trumpet Festival has traditionally been held in the town of Guča in western Serbia since 1961. All the lights of artistic Serbia are aimed at the trumpeters in Dragacevo every year in the first week of August. This unique music event is visited by tens of thousands of guests from our country and countries in the region, as well as from many countries in Europe and around the world. They all have one thing in common – a love of music and trumpet. The anthem of this festival is the song „Sa ovčara I Kalblara“ performed by several hundred trumpeters at the same time.
Jazz Festival Nisville
Many citizens od Nis recognize, in addition to quality and unique taverns and world-famous hospitality, the largest jazz music festival in this part of Europe – Nisville. Since the founding of the festival in 1995, Jazz fans have reserved the second half of each August since then in their agendas to visit Nis. Until 2006, the festival was held on the summer stage of the Nis Fortress, from where it moved a few hundred meters to the plateau behind the Bali Bey Mosque, where it is still held today.
In addition to jazz sound, visitors from Nis and guests had the opportunity to hear a much wider musical opus such as blues, Balkan music, ethno sound, hop hop and rock sound. Stages have been set up throughout the fortress that are open to those who have failed to secure tickets. Also, as part of this event, a large number of film screenings are being held, an art colony has been opened as well as an exhibition of comics. The most famous jazz and broader names we have had the opportunity to hear in „Fortress“ are Bob Geldoff, Candy Dulfer, Gypsy Kings, Solomon Burke, Inner Circle, Blues Brothers Band, Stanley Jordan, The Brand New Havies, Ron Carter, Alpha Blondy, Ginger Baker, Dusko Gojkovic, Incognito, Jazzanova, Bill Evans…
Fest
Fest is the largest film festival in Serbia. Since 1971, when Stanley Kubrick’s film „A Space Odyssey 2001“ was shown. In the hall of the House of Trade Unions and some other halls of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, the extraordinary world achievements of the film industry were shown and sometimes premiered. Honorary guests of the festival were, among others, Catherine Danev, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Milos Forman, Johnny Depp, Sofia Loren…
Filmski susreti Nis
While most film festivals are focused on directing and international filmmaking in general, Nis film meetings are absolutely focused on actors, which is why every year the mayor of Nis hands over the city keys to actors – Nis’s most important guests every year at the end of August. The festival has existed since 1966 on the initiative of the actors themselves and has been held on the summer stage of the Nis Fortress ever since. The official name of the festival is the Festival of Actors’ Achievements. It is a small number of evenings during these almost 60 years of the festival that it did not rain for at least one night, so the umbrella is a frequent addition to the styling of almost all visitors who come to the fortress. Apart from the bards of Serbian and Yugoslav theater who won some of the awards at these meetings, such as Velimir Bata Živojinović, Dragan Nikolić, Pavle Vujisić, Mirijana Joković, Predrag Miki Manojlović, Dušan Janićijević, Aleksandar Berček, the most famous couple who ever came to Niš were definitely Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Barton who played Tito in the film Sutjeska.
There is a city legend that the legendary Liz Taylor never forgot her stay in Nis, thanks to the worker of the Tobacco Industry Nis who could not resist to touch the background of the American double Oscar winner.
