Monica Belucci opens Fest film festival in Serbia

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Italian actress Monica Belucci arrives at the opening of the International Film Festival FEST 2017 in Belgrade, Serbia, on Feb. 24, 2017. International film festival FEST 2017 opened on Friday in Belgrade's "Sava Centre" by famous Italian actress Monica Belucci, star of the latest movie by Serbian director Emir Kusturica "On the Milky Road". (Xinhua/Nemanja Cabric)

International film festival FEST 2017 opened on Friday in Belgrade's "Sava Centre" by famous Italian actress Monica Belucci, star of the latest movie by Serbian director Emir Kusturica "On the Milky Road".

Serbia's biggest film festival gathered numerous local and regional movie stars such as Vojin Cetkovic and Sloboda Micalovic and filmmakers such as Spanish veteran Carlos Saura.

One of the most awaited persons by some several hundred people in front of the Sava Center in Belgrade was Belucci.

In her brief speech to several thousand people in the audience, Belucci said that she spent wonderful time in Serbia while shooting the movie and appreciated its natural beauties.

"I spent long time here because we worked on this movie for three years and I met great people. It is also a great honor because our film opens such an important festival such as Fest," Belucci said at the opening.

The official opening ceremony was followed by the screening of movie starring Kusturica and Belucci who participated at Venice International Film Festival and the BFI in London last year.

In the movie, Kusturica, besides being the director, plays the main character, a lucky milkman who spends war days with a woman he loves, played by Belucci, that later becomes a monk looking back at his and his country's past.

The fest will close on March 5 with the screening of "Silence" the 2016 movie by Martin Scorsese about a young Portuguese Jesuit missionary who travels to seventeenth century Japan which banned almost all foreign contact and persecuted Japanese Christians.

The main competition program includes 15 movies -- "The Dark Wind" by Hussein Hassan from Iraq, "Eva" by Haim Tabakman from Israel, "Heartstone" by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmunsson from Island, and "Inversion" by Benham Behzadi and "Malaria" by Parviz Shabazi from Iran.

"The international competition program this year presents movies of different topics -- from those that deal with the current evil of terrorism to the nostalgic comedy that brings us to the times of the blue school uniforms from the times of socialism," art director of Fest, Pantelic said in his opening statement.

The main program of the 45th Fest includes 16 movies from Mexico, Britain, the U.S., Germany, and Canada among which are "American Pastoral" by Ewan McGregor, "Rules Do Not Apply" by Warren Beatty, "It's Only the End of the World" by Warner Herzog and others.

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