The seventh Belgrade Irish Festival (BIF), which will be held from 9 to 17 March under the slogan “Springtime in Belgrade!”, Brings exceptional film, literary and musical programs to this incredibly attractive visual content. Live stream of digital simulations of world-renowned visual artist John Gerard, extraordinary photos of Najdela Svona or a giant mural that will be painted in the center of Belgrade by famous street art artist James Erley, are just some of the exciting visual programs that await us at the seventh BIF.
One of the world’s most current visual artists dealing with modern technologies, John Gerard will be a special guest of the festival, and his live stream of digital simulations will be displayed at several prestigious locations in the city center. Gerard’s approach to constructing artworks is very specific, since besides dealing with problematic topics of contemporary society, he uses the latest computer technologies. It combines tens of thousands of digital photos that reconstruct certain scenes or places as a digital simulation. It uses the technology used in video games to achieve the effect of reality while its designs are essentially artificial.
From 12 to 17 March, visitors will be able to attend live stream projections from 12 to 20 hours in two locations.
For the first time this year, the Belgrade Irish Festival hosts a famous street art artist from Dublin, James Ehrlich. In the city center in Marshal Birjuzova Street, with the support of the City Assembly, Bekamenta and Hagepola, Erli will make a 180m square foot mural that will visually mark the festival as well as Belgrade.
Since 1997, Erli is part of the Irish graphite scene, and his style is a combination of principles and techniques learned through graffiti culture and street art on the one hand, and traditions and techniques learned through the experiences of his ancestors who worked on stained glass on the other. He is the author of the largest mural in Ireland, which represents the entire facade of the Blooms hotel in Dublin. The Belgrade audience will have the opportunity to meet this Irish artist at a conversation that will take place on Saturday, March 16, at the Barak Cultural Center (Makedonska 42).
Within this program segment, visitors of the festival and street art lovers will also have the opportunity to meet Belgrade from this corner of Street Art Tours, which will be organized on Friday, March 15 at 14.30. The place of departure is in front of the mural in Marshal Birjuzov, and all interested can apply for e-mail: info@irishfest.rs
Another outstanding event will be an open-air exhibition in the very center of the city called “Celtic and Serbian medieval church art – Parallels and Impacts”. The exhibition deals with populations in the Celtic and Serbian medieval church arts, with the desire to show the similarity between these two distant communities, but also the supra-national nature of Christianity.
The audience also expects photo contest with very attractive prizes. You can expect more information soon.
This year’s festival will feature a touching photo exhibition by Najdžel Svon “Budapest House with a yellow star”. These photographs show the door of so-called bulk ghettoes, yellow-colored buildings in which Jewish families are placed for more efficient deportation to death camps. Nigel’s photographs give one of the possibilities to deal with the horrors of urban environments, they remind us of the lives and deaths of those inhabitants who hide this door. The opening of the exhibition is scheduled for March 9 at 5.30 pm at the Gallery of the Jewish Cultural Center (Kralja Petra 71a), while the exhibition is scheduled for March 10 at 12 noon. Within this program will be organized the Tour of the Jewish Cultural Heritage which will be held on March 10 at 13.15, and all interested should apply via e-mail: info@irishfest.rs
The festival also organizes a graphic workshop in which monotype technique will be used with the instructions of world renowned Serbian artist Biljana Vukovic, a full-time professor in the retirement of FLU. Participants will get a rare opportunity to create a unique graphics that they can take with them, using a special approach to the technique that Biljana created and developed during her artistic career. The workshop will be held on March 14th and 15th, and for further information and applications please contact: info@irishfest.rs
Irish Film International, Culture Ireland, EU Delegation, EU Info Center, City of Belgrade, CRH, BPI, Agri Business organized by Irish Film Festival with the Serbian address Jas Kaminski in cooperation and with the support of institutions and partners: Irish Film Festival Partner, Comtrade, Jameson, Guinness (Carlsberg, Serbia), Belgrade Tourism Organization, Yugoslav Cinematheque, Irish Honorary Consulate (Serbia), and other cultural institutions and partners without which the Belgrade Irish Festival could not be held.