Los Angeles, CA: FEDEORA, the federation of European and Mediterranean film critics, has joined with the International Press Academy to extend IPA’s membership and the cross-cultural reach of both organizations. The joint announcement was made by Ronald Bergan, FEDEORA’s President, and Mirjana Van Blaricom, IPA President.
FEDEORA, which was founded 18 months ago at Cannes, includes members from The United Kingdom, Sweden, The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Israel, Spain, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Macedonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Russia, Denmark, and Turkey.
“We are delighted and honored that you have welcomed us as a partner and colleague of such a prestigious association as IPA,” said Ronald Bergan. “I’m proud to say that we already have members from 20 different countries.”
He added that FEDEORA has “established juries at seven festivals (Pula (Croatia), Mons (Belgium), Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), Haifa (Israel), Novi Sad (Serbia), Koper (Slovenia) and Aarhus (Denmark)), created a lively website with festival reports and articles, and published a book on the Polish film director Dorota Kedezavska, with the co-operation of Cinema City in Novi Sad.”
“We will now have eyes and ears on the ground at the source, in the home countries where world cinema is produced,” said Van Blaricom. “Films that might have been overlooked now stand a chance of being seen, appreciated, and reviewed. IPA welcomes an exciting chapter with FEDEORA. These new members represent not only the Euro-Med region and beyond, but their experience and expertise reflects a worldwide perspective on American films as well.”
According to one of the published festival reports from the 57th Pula Film Festival in Croatia last year, FEDEORA established its first filmmaking awards at Pula, and presented these awards as part of the festival’s closing ceremonies.
“Although the official language of FEDEORA is English (for obvious practical reasons) the vast majority of our members come from non-English speaking countries and their opinions will create a more cosmopolitan counterbalance. In these days of blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, a federation of well-known film critics from different countries with different cultures is not only rare, but essential,” Bergan concluded.
As stated by FEDEORA’s founders, the aims [of the organization] are “publishing film reviews, essays, festival reports and other articles”, as well as establishing links with EU film institutions and festivals, while avoiding political affiliation of any kind.
Founding members include: President Ronald Bergan, Eva Af Geijerstam, Nenad Dukic, Gidi Orsher, Peter van Bueren, Zlatko Vidackovic, and Peter Cargin, Treasurer. (For more information, please see their website www.fedeora.eu.)
With the addition of FEDEORA’s working membership, IPA will include new member choices and input in the balloting process for selecting nominees for the Satellite Awards.
