The 32nd European Film Festival in Palić has come to an end. Over five days, more than 140 films were screened across sixteen categories. The FIPRESCI Jury’s Grand Prize went to Quiet Life, a decision in which film journalist Kata Gyürke also took part. Here is her report from the festival.
It took me just an hour to cross the border. They say that usually it takes three — so yes, I was lucky. But the real privilege was being a FIPRESCI jury member and having the chance to watch some of the most remarkable European films of the past year. The competition drew from Venice to Tallinn and all the way to Cannes. Screenings were held in Subotica and in Palić, an old spa town of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, whose secessionist architectural gems line the shore of Lake Palić.
Like every festival, Palić’s true value lay in its encounters and conversations. The event is run by wonderful people: Ilija Tatić, Nikolaj Nikitin, Miroslav Mogorović, Eva Zrnić, along with many volunteers, students, and cinephile locals. They believe in what remains, even when the festival receives only scraps of funding: that humanity and care for one another connect film lovers. (This year the festival ran two days shorter than planned; meanwhile, Belgrade’s FEST was pushed from February to autumn. – Ed.)
The official competition jury was no less distinguished: Nikola Joetze, head of Berlinale Talents; Holly Daniel, director of the Red Sea Souk at the Red Sea International Film Festival; and Serbian-American filmmaker Zoran Amar. The Parallels and Encounters section was judged by acclaimed professionals too: British director Peter Webber, Macedonian producer Tomi Salkovski, and Bernd Buder, programme director of the Cottbus Film Festival.
Founded in 1992, in the shadow of the Yugoslav wars, the Palić festival has always treated cinema as a mirror of history and human connection, and has remained true to its original spirit. This year, several award-winning films reflected the shadow of war, including Two Prosecutors by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, which won the festival’s Golden Tower for Best Film. Its world premiere took place in Cannes this May, where it also scooped the prestigious François Chalais Prize. Loznitsa himself was present in Palić and received the Aleksandar Lifka Award for outstanding contribution to European cinema, alongside Serbian screen legend Svetozar Cvetković.
Based on a novella by Gulag survivor Georgy Demidov, Loznitsa wrote the screenplay for Two Prosecutors himself. The drama is set in 1937, during the darkest days of Stalinist terror, and follows the fates of two prosecutors: a once-powerful chief now imprisoned (Aleksandr Filippenko) and his young, idealistic colleague (Aleksandr Kuznetsov). Through the younger man’s eyes, we witness human tragedies hidden behind cell walls, the clash between truth and totalitarian power, and the machinery of the secret police. The film is meticulously crafted, visually rich, and hauntingly resonant—not only evoking a grim past but relentlessly pointing to echoes in our present. Loznitsa has made another essential film.
With my fellow jury members, British critic Leigh Singer and Italian critic Davide Magnisi, we too chose a film haunted by the spectre of war: Alexandros Avranas’s Quiet Life. At the awards ceremony, after honouring FIPRESCI’s 100th anniversary, we praised Avranas’s deeply humanist work for its fusion of poetic imagery with a stark depiction of bureaucratic machinery. The film places the refugee crisis at its heart—specifically through the plight of children, the most vulnerable of all.
Avranas builds the Swedish-set story with deliberate slowness and clarity, layering a tense, unsettling atmosphere. At first, it almost seems like surreal fiction, but the closing credits revealed otherwise: the story of this Russian émigré family was inspired by real events. The director had long been struck by the mysterious “resignation syndrome” among refugee children, some of whom fell into a coma-like state after facing the fear of forced return. Not least because they had often witnessed the brutality inflicted on their parents and the fear of being sent back to the country they had fled from could push them into a state of unconsciousness. Yet Quiet Life ultimately tests the resilience of the parents as much as their children. The film, a French-German-Swedish-Estonian-Greek-Finnish co-production, premiered in Venice’s Horizons section last year.
Accepting the prize via video, Avranas said:
“It is a great honour to be recognized by critics who still believe cinema has a responsibility—not just to entertain, but to disturb, to provoke, to ask difficult questions. Especially in the dangerous times we live in. Quiet Life was never meant to be an easy film. It is about the silent violence around us every day—the kind that wears a suit, obeys the rules, and smiles politely while harassing others. I believe silence itself can be political, and passivity can be complicity. My film rejects both. I thank the European Film Festival Palić for standing by a work that refuses to conform and for giving space to stories that challenge the status quo.”
The Tower for Best Director went to Portuguese filmmaker Paolo Marinou-Blanco for Dreaming of Lions, a tragicomedy blending absurd, grotesque humour with Mediterranean vitality. It confronted weighty themes—euthanasia and assisted suicide—through biting sarcasm and unexpected twists.
The international jury also gave a special mention to Anne Le Ny’s family drama-thriller Out of Control, starring Omar Sy, Vanessa Paradis, Élodie Bouchez, and José Garcia.
Kata Gyürke
©FIPRESCI 2025