The documentary film titled “The Big White House” madeby the network of young cancer survivors ‘MladiCe’, organised under the Association of “Heart for the Kids with Cancer”, is another reminder that the great victories are possible. MladiCe consists of the young people who have, in their childhood, won the greatest victory of their lives by successfully beating cancer. Beating cancer truly is a great victory of one’s life, however, this is not the end of victories for these brave fighters. They have proven this to be the case with a great success at the Dubrovnik Film Festival 2018, where they won the greatest award with the aforementioned documentary film, the so-called Grand Prix award, and have thus become the best film of the 7th DUFF. The award was received with great pleasure by Advija and Muhamed, the two strong, young members of MladiCe, representing MladiCe at the event.
The Big White House is a documentary film, based on true stories, discussing optimism, motivation and plans for the future in achieving one’s dreams, before and after the dangerous disease they have survived. The Big White House is a way to show that dreams can be achieved and, according to the words of the DUFF professional jury, it is: “A serious story about a sensitive topic. It is a story of love and support.”
The entire film wasco-authored by the members of MladiCe, which was made exclusively by their volunteering and with great enthusiasm, since this was their way of showing that we must always try and find new ways for the young to speak publically about their problems, while at the same timepointing towards the possibilities of their solutions. Mirza Ajnadžić was the cameraman, while Zoka Ćatić, from the Association for Cultural and Media Decontamination, was his mentor.
The seventh Dubrovnik Film Festival was held from 18 to 21 October. The record number of 320 films of children and the young from approximately ten Mediterranean countries were received this year for the competition program selection, out of whom the selection jury selected about seventy of them in two age categories (up to fifteen years and from sixteen to twenty-one) and three separate categories by the authors’ age groups for the animated, feature and documentary films, while an open category was joint for both these categories. In this way, the four days of the main festival programme gathered 150 children, youth, their mentors and professors, who spoke through the film, as the strongest media, about the countries they live in, about their problems they face and also about the beautiful things that inspire them.
The basic idea is that the film festival of children and youth from the Mediterranean countries (the age limit is 20) must enable, improve and encourage the film creativity of the young. Every year during the film festival period, Dubrovnik hosts a great number of children from different countries and cultural background, quite often of a different social status and a way of life, but always ready to use their filmmaking to show the significance of their specificities and problems of the communities they come from, both the ugly ones they would like to change for the better as well as the beautiful ones they find inspiring and are rightly proud of.