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Introduction: In this interview, we have the pleasure of speaking with Vera Mijojlic, the founder and director of the Southeast European Film Festival (SEE Festival) in Los Angeles. With a background in journalism and a lifelong passion for cinema, Vera has dedicated over two decades to bringing the rich and diverse voices of Eastern and Southeastern Europe to audiences in the United States. From curating bold and innovative films to navigating the challenges of funding and political correctness, Vera shares her insights into the unique journey of promoting Eastern European cinema in a Hollywood-dominated landscape.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Could you introduce yourself and tell us about your role in your organization?
Vera Mijojlic (VM): My name is Vera Mijojlic and I am the founder and director of the Southeast European Film Festival, SEE Festival in Los Angeles. We started it as a project in early 2001 or 2002. First, we called it the Sarajevo project, because that’s my hometown and in 2006, we incorporated the nonprofit. So, it’s been going on for more than 20 years. But officially, under this name, and as a nonprofit public benefit corporation, it’s been in existence since 2006. So our 19th edition was just completed in May. My background is in journalism, I’m also a writer and a lifelong lover of cinema. I grew up in the Yugoslav Kinoteka, the Cinematheque, watching old movies. And I love books. That is the perfect environment for me. No matter how late it is at night and how tired I am, I have to read. Movies and books are my first love, and that’s still true today.
The SEE festival covers 20 countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, an interesting and unfortunately very turbulent region, extending from Ukraine in the north all the way through the Balkans, down to Turkey and Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. SEEfest is very geographically focused, similar to the Sarajevo Film Festival, which I always give credit to. I always tell them, guys, I’m copying you, just so you know. Because I think they have a really great focus and a great program. So, I’ve been going to the Sarajevo Festival pretty much every year, and I believe that the region is a microcosm of our entire world. There’s nothing you don’t have there; more than what people think. When you say Europe, people have a very specific idea of what it is. But our region is neither Western Europe nor Russia. It is this borderland, nowhere-land, where you have a multitude of ethnicities; even smaller ethnic-minority groups, languages, and racial diversity. That’s what I find beautiful: the diversity. It’s sometimes troubled, and there are conflicts, but I prefer to look at it not just from the point of view of a conflict zone, but rather the beauty that exists when so many different cultures converge, influence each other, and meet in close proximity.
(UM): Could you elaborate on the selection process? Do you curate these films, or is there an open submission process? How does the process work?
(VM): We have open submissions from September to late January or early February every year. It is rigorously curated by a team of volunteers. This is a volunteer-driven festival of cinema professionals, longtime volunteers and cinephiles. About 3 people are assigned to each category, with more for shorts because that’s the category with the biggest number of submissions. After reviewing the films, we sit down and make the decision together. I’m dabbling as an artistic director as well. But I prefer to defer to others and reach the final selection through a consensus process. That’s been the hallmark of the festival, the quality of the programming. And of course, it all depends on the production year. Sometimes you have more than you can possibly show. But we try to go for innovative, bold, and different movies. They don’t have to be perfect. We kind of look for that spark, and that spark inspires us and hopefully it inspires our audiences as well. So, the biggest chunk of our time and investment is in programming which we do as if we had a big-budget organization!
(UM): What I love about Eastern European cinema is the sense of liberty and freedom it embodies—something that I don’t even see in Western Europe. These films often explore themes and take directions that might be considered unacceptable by Western norms. Given that your festival is based in the United States, where political correctness is highly influential, I’m curious if this creates any particular challenges for you.
(VM): Many of these countries have recently been at war, and some of them are at war right now or in some kind of dispute. Everything is a point of contention: The names. They fight over names. They fight over borders. They fight over fishing rights. So, I take it as our greatest achievement, if I could say so, that we managed to bring these people together; not for them to agree, not for them to start thinking that you think like me and I think like you, but to at least respectfully watch each other’s stories. Not only the movies, but that we all have the right to tell our own story. It’s okay if you want to tell my story, but give me the opportunity to also tell my own story of who I am, where I’m coming from, in my own way, in my own words. It’s not so much about whether it’s the cultural appropriation or the neocolonialism, but it’s this authenticity of voices and even the small voices. Even if it’s a smaller group, and especially the Roma. There are millions of Roma living in Eastern Europe. It’s a different culture, linguistically, and in every way. It’s racially a different group of people, and they are scattered all over. And they’re also not all the same. So we try to have a representation of this diversity. I know that diversity is a loaded term because everybody’s using it these days. But we try to see that as the beauty in our differences.
(UM): Your mention of diversity reminds me of something I read from Žižek, where he discusses the concept of diversity. He suggests that true diversity isn’t just about showcasing what you like; it’s also about presenting what you don’t like.
(VM): Exactly. Sometimes people ask, why are you showing this film? Well, it’s important to show it. It is good for us to know that these people are thinking about and seeing the same things in a different way. And, again, it’s not about us agreeing with them, you know, like we only take those that we agree with. We have to be able to stay open to this dialogue. And maybe I’m an idealist, but I do believe in the possibility of the dialogue. Before resorting to other ways of (mis)communication, we can dialog by way of culture, art, and cinema. In the case of cinema, you just load the film and you watch it for 90 minutes or so. Well, it can tell a large story in 90 minutes. Maybe it doesn’t change the minds to a big degree, but it opens that little crack in the door, even if only for a little bit. And I think that already is a lot. Yeah. Because it’s such a volatile region, and people are very sensitive, and things change all the time. Those that were the bad guys 30 years ago are now somebody else. You know, it sort of shifts all the time. I mean, bad guys, quote unquote. Sometimes I was asked, why choose something that is the political minefield? Because everybody calls the Balkans “powder keg”. There was even a movie with that title. It may be a powder keg, but for me it is a challenge – otherwise why do something that’s easy? Instead do something that’s more interesting, find humanity in ways that are not so obvious. And also it’s about understanding the other side. You know, trying to at least listen to the other person and hear them. Again, not necessarily agreeing, but at least hearing a different point of view.
(UM): In terms of funding, I understand that it’s more challenging to secure government support in the US, where there may be less emphasis on cultural funding. Additionally, since your festival covers an entire region rather than just one or two specific countries, this likely presents unique challenges when it comes to attracting sponsors. Could you elaborate on how you navigate these difficulties?
(VM): Well, not just for our festival, and not only for film festivals, there is some funding for cultural programs. It’s not that it does not exist. It’s just very small. Europeans don’t know how lucky they are with government funding. They say, oh the grants are not big. Well, they maybe get 20, 30, or 50 thousand dollars. The funding in the U.S is very, very small. We get support from the state, county, and city of Los Angeles. These are small grants, and the reason is that, contrary to what people think, that everything stops in New York with MoMA, that there’s nothing after that towards the West – LA is a phenomenal cultural metropolis. It has so much to offer. There’s actually a glut of art programs and activities. So what the funders do is they spread available funds among all arts organizations, across all categories. Including the LA Opera. Including the LA Phil. Including outdoor art. Including the Shakespeare in the Park, educational programs, after-school programs, reading programs, dance organizations, and nonprofit film festivals. So, the funding exists. It is just very small. Another thing that surprises people is that most of us function thanks to the large contingent of volunteers and professionals working pro bono, such as people from the industry. I know that Hollywood has bad PR, but it’s because of what’s visible from Hollywood. There are tens of thousands of people working in the industry – writers, gaffers, electricians, drivers, set decorators, designers, you name it. I have never experienced anywhere that amount of goodwill and contribution; the juries, the mentors, the workshops, the master classes. We have now 19 years of experience. We would not exist without volunteers and industry professionals. We really would not. So that is something that is a great asset. That’s wonderful about LA and about the community. And I really, really want to emphasize that because it’s a tremendous help. It keeps us going. It gives us the strength. And we have volunteers who’ve been with us, since the beginning.
(UM): How do you find the experience of promoting Eastern European movies in the US, given the strong Hollywood-centric mentality? Do you have a dedicated audience eagerly awaiting these events? And who typically makes up the majority of attendees—are they people from the same region, or are they primarily US-born citizens?
(VM): It’s a combination of different audience groups. Not exactly the diaspora, but some immigrants and some maybe second-generation immigrants who are kind of losing that connection. They may not even speak the language that well, but would like to reconnect with their roots. Then we have cinephiles, industry. We have the young filmmakers, the American independents, looking for what’s new coming from Eastern Europe. It’s part of a tradition, as among professors at films schools – at Columbia, and other universities in the US, including USC and UCLA, LMU and so on, were many filmmakers from Eastern Europe, who were trailblazers. For example, Dušan Makavejev who was beloved by all of his students to this day. One of them was Joshua Oppenheimer, you know, who did The Act of killing. He was Makavejev’s student. He always cites the profound influence that Makavejev had on his work. Other American independent filmmakers like to see what’s new coming from Eastern Europe. Travelling all over is expensive, so when they come to a festival like ours, they’re able to see these bold, risky, filmmaking efforts from Eastern European filmmakers. And that’s another audience contingent, local filmmakers. We also have this international community – L.A. is the second largest diplomatic site in the US and in the world, I guess, after the United Nations in New York. There’s a lot of people who work in diplomatic offices in L.A. Other international representatives, chambers of commerce, trade commissions from many different countries, plus other groups, and art organizations. We also work with organizations that provide media programs for local schools in our area. It’s mostly high school youth, predominantly Latino youth.
(UM): One of the challenges many festivals face is securing venues, especially in Los Angeles, where it can be very expensive. How do you manage this for your festival? Do you have your own venues, or do you need to rent them? How does that process work?
(VM): We do both. For the opening night, we have the Writers Guild Theater, which is expensive, and then everybody expects the reception and so forth. But that’s one night. We used to have two nights there, but that cost was prohibitive. We also wanted to spread the venues all over because L.A. is such a large area. This year we had 7 venues including Laemmle Theatres, which is an old wonderful art-house chain. We rented two of their venues, one in Encino, all the way in the West, and Laemmle Royal, their flagship cinema, which is in West Los Angeles. Then we were at UCLA, at the film school’s main venue, which is the Bridges Theatre at the Melnitz Hall. We were also at a wonderful arts hub, 2220 Arts + Archives, in the Filipino town. And we were at the Goethe-Institut. I used to work with them from the get-go. They were like our first home, but moved from the previous place, and then the pandemic happened. So now we’re back. Their new location is in the MacArthur Park area, with predominantly Latino population, many of them Salvadoran, as well as Mexican. We also had screenings at the Regal cinema, in downtown LA, LA Live. Maybe we will do more next year. Because we want to really go out there. At one point I was working also with the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, just about an hour and a half south of Los Angeles. It’s run by my very good friend who is a passionate art-house guy. He took over an old theater that was boarded up and turned it into this nice art house. I plan to go there again. And just before coming here to Cluj, I visited Gardena Cinema. It’s an old theater, straight from Cinema Paradiso. It’s a 760-seat theater. Original chairs. Nothing fancy. The owner is the daughter of Korean immigrants and she runs it with volunteers. And actually, the film that I really, really liked, Dolemite is my name, with Eddie Murphy and written by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, was filmed in that theater. The film is a story about Rudy Ray Moore, who was this blaxploitation filmmaker in the seventies. So, they found this theater in Gardena that looked like it had come back from that era. We plan to do some special events there. We do this throughout the year; the special screenings.
(UM): In terms of international relationships, do you facilitate co-production opportunities with this region? For example, do you have a market section dedicated to this?
(VM): We have the accelerator program for projects in development, and we have every year about 10, or 12 projects. Accelerator, unlike the rest of the festival, is open to everybody from anywhere in the world. And we have a spin-off of the Accelerator, which is the writers lab, which runs from October through March. Meetings are held every 2 weeks, reading each other’s material, rewriting, and so on. At the end there is a writers showcase, that we’ve organized and produced. The accelerator takes place 2 weeks before the festival, with about 10 workshops. We have the log-line perfecting workshop, the pitch master class, the entertainment law workshop, the distribution and sales workshop, and the creative producing. And then we end up with the producers panel. Mentors and presenters are people who are on our advisory board, some are members of the Academy, and 4 or 5 other industry people. This year we had projects from Chile, Serbia, Greece / Armenia, Turkey, and the U.S. Sessions are held on Zoom because people are in different places. SEEfest Accelerator has been going on for 10 years.
(UM): I believe I’ve covered all the major questions I had. Is there anything else you think might be interesting for our audience?
(VM): Well, Romanian cinema has been wonderful in the last 20 years. We’ve been the early, early promoters of the Romanian New Wave. And we have consistently nurtured and cultivated the program of Romanian films, and trying to also bring movies by emerging filmmakers. We’ve also shown quite a number of ethnographic films, and films about the Roma people. The largest contingent of the Roma people live in Romania; I think about close to 2, 000, 000. It is a sizable group. We wanted to show different aspects of Roma life, with most of those films from Romania and Slovakia. In Slovakia, there are filmmakers who are working on ethno-musicology, recording the old Roma songs, and preserving the original authentic songs from the Roma life. The filmmakers were looking for Roma people who still knew old songs, and they were recording them in churches (good acoustics!), with professional equipment. And then they made a documentary film about it, and we’ve shown it at SEEfest. So that is what we try to do, bring these gems to audiences in L.A. But the Romanian connection is especially strong because I don’t think we’ve had any year that we did not have Romanian films. This is the first time I’m here in Cluj, in Romania, and I was delighted to be on the jury for the Romanian Days, because it gave me an opportunity to see new movies, to meet the filmmakers. I think, in every way, it’s such a rich country, with stories yet to be told. I think they have a great resource in their literature, poetry and music. It’s a great thing that you have a place where so many different cultures coexist, and influence each other. I’ve always found that to be the most interesting thing. Because I like to, emotionally and creatively, travel between cultures.
(UM): And it is also a kind of response to your roots because Sarajevo is very much multicultural.
(VM): Yes, in my school we had everybody. And not just what young people today think how it was. There were the Serbs, the Croats, and the Bosnians – and a lot of Czechs too, because Bosnia used to be part of Austria-Hungary. The Czechs were brought in, they were engineers who set up modern factories. The Sephardic Jews had a vibrant community and they spoke the Ladino language (we have shown films about their culture at SEEfest). So I grew up with that medley of cultures and it has influenced my whole life. I was raised by parents who were taking us to travel all over what used to be Yugoslavia. And that spirit stayed with me.
Then I lived in the Middle East for a while, and I lived in New York. I lived in Paris. Now I live in Los Angeles. I feel comfortable with everybody. I don’t see why I would not. I truly feel comfortable wherever I am, with whomever I’m with. And I think that is just as if you make the little bit of an effort, I think everybody should try that, and then see, hey, what’s the big deal? But people don’t make an effort. Mhmm. No. I don’t wanna go there. Why not? You know, the first thing that I was told when I moved to LA, was like people giving me advice. Don’t go South of 10 and East of 110 Freeway. I said, why? Well, just don’t go there. Don’t drive there. Or don’t go in those areas. I said, but have you ever been there? No. I said, I have. And to this day, I do go. I mean, something can happen to you and me if we go just outside this door here. Well, come on. What is this notion, when people say, ‘I really don’t wanna go there.’ They’re not quite sure what is there, but don’t even want to try. I think there has to be a conscious effort. And our job in the arts is to at least suggest to people to take a look into that infamous there.
(UM): I should have asked you this question before, and you said a little bit about the spirit of your festival. But what about, canceled filmmakers, the politically problematic filmmaker? For example, Emir Kusturica or Russian filmmakers. Do you still show their movies in your festival, or are they too sensitive?
(VM): Kusturica’s films have been previously shown at U.S. festivals, before SEEfest came into existence, and some of them are in US distribution. I believe that at least some of them were distributed. I personally love his early movies, of course; the best ones were written by Abdulah Sidran, the poet. But that’s my personal preference. He is a very talented, great filmmaker. His political persona is a whole different story. It’s the age-old question of the artist as a person, and the art itself.
You cannot ‘cancel’ Kusturica. He has his place in cinema history. I don’t see that it has to be, oh, should you show or should you not show – I think we can show anything, and we can have a discussion about the movies on their own merit. You know, you can show films and say, hey, this guy was accused of something. Like, you know, the controversy around Polanski or the controversy around Woody Allen. You have the pros and you have the cons. Find me an artist who has not created controversy. And I think that we have to have the creative freedom to not have forbidden topics, which doesn’t mean that you endorse somebody whose political views you disagree with. Or like you have a whole country that we may say, oh, the politics of this country we really disagree with. But you are not going to erase the artists that happen to live there. So, you know, you had, I mean, James Joyce was a major drunk. And he was frequenting brothels when he was living in Trieste. And now, from this perspective, we see that he was this colorful character and he’s still a giant in the 20th-century literature. So art does come with some baggage. We all have baggage. All of us. There is no person with no baggage. So I don’t think that we should be afraid of it.
(UM): Even Tolstoy, at the end of his life, became very sympathetic to the Russian government and Dostoevsky was also the same.
(VM): And regarding Russia, in my view, there should be a separate festival for Russian cinema because they have independent filmmakers with handheld cameras going out there and making interesting films right now. So the fact is that you have the politics that you have today, but how many big countries are empires? We have 2 or 3 or 4 today in the world. You know the thinking of an empire has been the same since the Roman time, since the Egyptian times. It’s always the same thing. They all had client states. They all were ruling over somebody else. Just go back in history and see what was happening. So what’s so different today? I’m still going to love Russian literature and Russian cinema. And they have some really great filmmakers. So, I just feel that forbidding never serves us well. There should be a discussion. There should be an informed discussion. Context is very important. You have to provide the context. Because otherwise, people will embrace something not knowing the whole context. So I think what we try to do is provide that necessary framework for American audiences to better understand the complexities of the region. Because it’s not black and white. It’s not even gray. It’s very complex. I dare to step into those troubled, treacherous waters. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I think that’s what I need to do. Because the moment I start becoming too cautious, then it becomes boring. Now, It’s like let’s be safe. Please, art should not be safe. You know, think Basquiat. Think Banksy. Think Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei is controversial for some people. He is very controversial in China. So what are we going to do with Ai Weiwei? Everybody has something, some baggage; what we need to do, is to keep the door open.
(UM): Thanks.
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