Culture helps us deal with stressful days, by sparking our imagination and conveying a notion when we are bored, teaching us and creating space for new knowledge, experiences and people
Culture can heal both the soul and the mind. For me, art is an integral part of my working life, but also my private life – it is there to relax me on stressful days, enliven quiet hours, motivate me to fantasise, to travel with it (if only in my thoughts), and it is thanks to culture that I discover new knowledge, enjoy new experiences and make new acquaintances.
When it comes to culture, there are numerous advantages to spending summer in the city. When it’s hot, we can cool down at one of the numerous airconditioned cinema auditoriums and gallery spaces. When it’s pleasant, we can enjoy an open-air concert, attend an interesting book promotion, visit one of the numerous cultural events. The ideal combination for me is to spend the summer in a city, but a city that’s located on the coast of a sea or ocean. If you’re a lover of films, urban nightlife and the sea, film festivals like the ones in Venice and Cannes are the right choice for you. If you find that excessively glamorous and pricey, our region has more affordable and closer destinations that also have interesting film festivals: Pula and Herceg Novi.
If you are a film lover who prefers slightly hillier areas with lower temperatures on summer evenings, you can easily head over to Sarajevo, which hosts one of the biggest film festivals in this part of Europe in mid-August. If you are nonetheless spending the summer in Serbia and have had your fill of baking asphalt in the city, July is marked by our country’s most beautiful cinematography event, the Palić Film Festival.
When heatwaves hit, numerous airconditioned cinema auditoriums and gallery spaces offer space for us to think with a cool head
I’m not sure whether focusing on cultural content is a form of escaping reality or an attempt for us to better understand that reality. I would say that we can’t generalise – I believe there are people who can relate to both of these approaches. For me, focusing on cultural content means focusing on my job, which I do – as a communications specialist – in the field of culture and art. A great thing is that I’m able to enjoy doing my job, as well as the fact that, through my work, I’ve also managed to make art and culture a significant part of my everyday life.
As I write these lines, I sit in the park in front of the hotel in Palić, where the Palić European Film Festival is currently underway. I’m also preparing new schedules for the interviews with journalists that festival guests will have tomorrow. A press conference has just ended that included, among others, Bruno Anković, director of the film Celebration, which just a few days ago received the best film award at the Pula Festival.
As the summer continues, I’m awaited by work at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which I also look forward to joyfully.
Photo: Bojana Janjić