June 5, 2025 | Thursday
For the first time, the city of Gjilan / Gnjilane hosted the European Film Festival (EEF) from 6 – 8 May 2025, an event aimed to strengthen cultural ties between Kosovo and the European Union. Organized by Europe House Kosovo in collaboration with the local NGO Varg e Vi, the European Film Festival was part of Europe Day celebrations for 2025.
In the true spirit of celebrating European values and bringing locals closer to them, the festival featured films from Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Croatia, the Netherlands, Austria, and Slovenia. The presence of high-ranking diplomatic representatives at each evening spoke to the importance of cinema as a bridge between nations.
Each year, Europe Day celebrations expand in different cities across Kosovo. In this endeavor, collaboration with local civil society actors is of utmost importance. Varg e Vi, this year’s focal point in Gjilan, was founded in 2011 and has since become the cornerstone of cultural life in the Anamorava region. Originally conceived as a center for contemporary art, the organization has grown to embrace visual arts, theater, poetry, film, heritage, and performance—organizing exhibitions, festivals, workshops, and international collaborations.
European Films in Focus
The European Film Festival that took place from 6 – 8 May in Gjilan / Gnjilane, featured productions from nine different European states. The opening was attended by Germany’s and Italy’s Deputy Heads of Mission in Kosovo, Matthias Conrad and Chiara Castaldo.
In their opening remarks, both representatives spoke about the importance of collaboration in cinematography between different EU countries.
The festival opened with the screening of Io Sto Bene (I’m Fine), a co-production between Italy, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium featuring the story of Antonio, an elderly Italian immigrant in Luxembourg who meets Leo, a young Italian artist striving to establish herself abroad. The film is a reflection on identity, displacement and the intergenerational migrant experience.
On the second night, the representatives of the Greek and Croatian embassies joined the festival in Gjilan / Gnjilane, which was reserved for showcasing films from Greece, Croatia and Italy. The lines between sanity and madness are blurred in Greece’s Dodo, which screened on the second evening of the festival and unveiled the story of a financially struggling family who were preparing for their daughter’s marriage into a wealthy family when dodo-a bird extinct for 300 years showed up disrupting the proceedings. Themes of freedom and dreams to escape her constrained life are explored in Croatia’s Murina that also screened in the second evening of the festival. The second evening closed with the screening of Primadonna from Italy, following Lia, a young Sicilian woman in the 1960s who, after being subjected to a forced marriage following sexual assault, challenges social norms by seeking justice, challenging the tradition of reparatory marriage.
The third evening of the European Film Festival was reserved for the films Mitra (Netherlands), Sirens Don’t Cry (Austria), and The Innocent Man (Slovenia), each depicting powerful themes such as trauma, identity, justice, and the human longing for transformation and redemption. The festival hosted representatives of the Dutch, Austrian and the Slovenian embassies, for opening remarks before the film screenings.