One of the greatest world and European film festivals, the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival takes place 9-19 February 2012. The Croatian minority co-production Parade was selected for Panorama as one of the first 20 titles in the programme. Parade is a brave and important film, said the Panorama programmer Wieland Speck.

Out of several thousand submitted entries, Panorama so far selected about twenty films, with the estimate that its three sections – Main Section, Panorama Dokumente and Panorama Special – will altogether contain fifty titles. Parade thus enjoys the company of world-acclaimed directors, such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Volker Schlöndorff, Cao Hamburger, Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Teona Strugar Mitevska.

The film was co-produced by four countries – Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia. In November and December in Serbia it was seen by 300,000 people during six weeks of cinema distribution, followed by 28,000 viewers in Croatia in just two weeks of screening. Openings in Macedonia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro ensued, slowly turning Parade into a regional hit film.

This story about a Serbian macho man and war veteran Limun (Nikola Kojo), who agrees to secure a gay pride parade in order to appease his fiancé Biserka (Hristina Popović) is directed and written by Srđan Dragojević, who directed some of the best rated films in this region in the last twenty year (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame; We Are Not Angels; The Wounds). This film, being an audience favourite and at the same time a Berlinale entry, shows that film d’auteur can still communicate pretty well, said Srđan Dragojević about Parade’s participation in Panorama.

Panorama is a Berlinale programme dedicated to new films by renowned directors, debut films and discoveries. The heart of the programme consists of films with powerful artistic visions, whose target audience is sales agents and potential buyers.

Panorama thus unites commercial interests and film d’auteur in a unique way.

The films screened within this programme compete for eight prestigious awards, the most important being Panorama Audience Award, decided on by more than 20,000 Berlinale visitors, and Teddy Award, the most important world award for films concerning queer and LGBT issues, awarded for the first time precisely within the Panorama 1987 programme.

Parade was supported by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Eurimages and all co-producing countries. The Croatian co-producer is Mainframe Production company.