Launch today “Good afternoon, dobar dan!”, festival intended to break Kosovo- Serbia

Today in Belgrade the festival will open “good afternoon, dobar dan!”, this unique event that has presented Kosovo's cultural and social scene in Belgrade since 2014.

The aim of the festival is to create a tradition of co-operation, which will contribute to the achievement of a sustainable normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

This year, the festival takes place in a specific period, when the relationship between Pristina and Belgrade is at the lowest level since the start of the Brussels Agreement. A visible political crisis is reflected in the daily lives of citizens in Kosovo and Serbia. This further displaces co-operation between two societies, not only in the cultural sphere but also in trade, sports, education and all other sectors. The festival sends a clear message to the Kosovo and Serbian political elite and the barriers should be broken, not to build”, said the festival's official communique.

Just as in the past years, visitors this year will be able to learn more about Kosovo's cultural scene through a series of dramas, performances, films, concerts and exhibitions. A part of the festival will be dedicated to discussions and debates on the future of Pristina relations, Belgrade and the importance of co-operation for both societies.

The official opening of the festival <x0); good afternoon, Dobar dan! ” will take place today with the screening of “Cold November”, directed by Ismet Syarinas, which was presented at many international film festivals that have resulted in two awards and three nominations.

An event that will precede the opening will be the artistic performance “Lettʹs make love” by the Tafilaj script.

During the festival, the public will have the opportunity to watch documentary film “Ferdonija”, this film by Gazmend Bajri and February Dauti, which shows the life of a woman who lost her entire family during the last war in Kosovo.

A theatre show directed by renowned Albanian actor and director Enver Petrovci, titled “Creoles of the Balkans”, will be presented during the festival for all theatre lovers.

During the festival, three different debates will be organised to discuss issues related to missing persons, writing new dramas in Kosovo, and history books. Three specific publications will be promoted along with these debates: Memory book with family accounts of unknown “Living with memories of the found” published by the forum Z FD in Kosovo and Integre, “One Fleve Over The Kosovo Theatre A Contemporary Drama Anthology published by Multimedia (Kosovo) and Beton (Serbia). Kosovo's “History in the Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia”, written by Shkelzen Gashi and published by Alter Haitus.

The closing performance of this year's edition will be a very exciting concert of the Trio “Don't listen to your neighbours” from Gjakova, who are well known for always holding a refined collection of traditional Albanian reactors, and in recent years they have developed a very unique style of jazz elements that come to us in a sophisticated manner. Later, the DJ Matale performance from Pristina will close the festival “Good afternoon, Dobar Dan!” 2019.

Breathing for festival <x0); Good afternoon, Dobar dan! ” is the well-known Albanian, Kosovo, but also the world-wide actor Bekim Fehmiu, who symbolizes unity but also the possibility of joining both cultural spaces in one.

The festival will be held at several locations. The entrance, as in the past years, will be free.

The Integration Festival (Kosovo), Youth Initiative for Human Rights (Serbia), and Civic Initiative (Serbia), with the support of the Kosovar Open Society Foundation (KFOS), the Foundation for Open Society in Serbia, Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo.