Mediterranean filmmakers have scattered around the world with the desire to bring us the diversity of human aspirations and the cruelty of that common and the bestial in different landscapes that permeate as narrative coordinated actions. So, among the pictures that flow over the screen we can see compilation records in the manner of a diary, gloomy daily passages through the existence of decay, a sinister tradition that stops the efforts towards the desired freedom, contemplative memories of a childhood and a life that has disappeared in the fog, terrible experiences, stoic reflections in trenches and areas of hopelessness.Authors of films from the competition unearth the heavy burden of an experienced and memorable moment of imposed weight. They give us their view of life in a strong handwriting, to which we must certainly respond with appropriate concentration.

Due to the concept of the festival that ten films enter the competition, and as we always receive a bunch of great films that unfortunately are not shown, it was decided to put together two special programs "In focus" in which 6-7 short films would be shown, which with their quality do not fall behind those ten selected ones. This year we have two excellent short film programs. It is necessary to emphasize the common thread of all the films in these two programs, all of them are immersed in their skilful distance from the stale ways of dealing with documentary principles, and as such deserve to be seen in this way as well.Fireworks of emotions, family ties and doubts, memories and the fight against frequent oblivion. Short films that mostly break through expected solutions with memorable scripts. Worthy of attention. 

Both the competition and off program bring a large number of films from the region. I believe this is a record number of “domestic” at MFF. Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo...  Are there more films produced or they have better quality, or both? 

Films from the region swept the festival this year both in number and in quality. A multitude of authorial pretensions that are not afraid to tackle with even the most complicated and entangled relationships within a space burdened with the daily creation of history. I can say without any doubt that the authors from the region marked the festival in every respect with their seriousness and creative level.The filmmakers are happy to engage in investigative warfare with undiscovered areas where fear and anxiety "dwell", in areas where the human soul is searching for its cave for survival.Films from the region are abundant with firm directorial hands that watch over the perishable commodity called impression. Each film from the region clearly and eloquently expresses its documentary style, using only its own film philosophy.

True documentary filmmakers always face a multitude of challenges. The events around us, wrapped into dramatic daily turmoil catch up our perception. The digital era has made it possible for us to react cinematically in the very moment. Current filmmakers can just go out of their home or look through the window and turn on the recording device, whatever it's called. Everything that is interesting and challenging in terms of film is happening now and directly in front of our eyes. The challenge, on the other hand, for a real filmmaker, for a real author, a documentary filmmaker, is how to shape all that is filmed, how to structure it, how to dress it up in an interesting and cinematically expressive way.This is the point at which, since forever, the true masters have been separated from those passing posers who have clearly strayed into the medium.I believe that contemporary authors should not be afraid of researching, combining, testing, exhausting the form, and even using other genre procedures in the creation of the final product, all in the service of obtaining the best flow and cinematic expression.After all, an aesthetic idea has been relevant for a long time on the scene, an attempt to create a documentary film as a hybrid substrate, both fiction and documentary and experimental, placed in a common bag of expressions.

Going through the pile of films submitted for selection at the 23rdMFF, I easily came to the conclusion that most of the works are made up of television-reportage shows and historical scientific-popular reports.These are legitimate television genres, but I'm afraid they don't belong in this kind of festival.The problem of today's documentary would be a journalistic, reportage approach to the subject, when everything that is a characteristic of reporting from the field for a daily show is attempted to be brought into the form of a film, it is tried to be smuggled in as an authentic documentary.Superficiality, over-verbalization, "talking heads", insufficient engagement with the visual, and the lack of poetics between the frames and the atmosphere that creates emotions for everyone who consumes such a film.Today's documentary filmmaker, in our opinion, needs a kind of deviation from the television form, which in its nature does not leave the space for quality aesthetic play, and reduces them only to a mere transmitter of a message. Documentary film is a serious film form in which the authors touch solid reality, giving it a personal stamp through worldview and handwriting, in contrast to the reportage approach.

During the course of years that the Mediterranean Film Festival has existed, it has managed to build the image of an undisputed criterion of a good film that can be watched with pleasure on the big screen in Široki Brijeg. All these festival years have brought the most important film productions from the region and the Mediterranean, namely documentaries of world importance.Fake film attempts, imperfect celluloid transience cannot pass here. MFF imprints deep traces of documentary filmmaking in these areas. MFF treats documentary in the only valid way. A serious concept, strict selection and relevant choice, creative diversity of films, consistency in the festival format, all this has brought the MFF well-deserved respect among festivals and audiences not only in the Mediterranean but also much wider. We should continue on the same path and at the same pace. MFF definitely has a future.