The 9th "Merlinka" festival is taking place at the Belgrade Youth Center from 7th to 13th December. This year's international queer film festival is named "Fall in love with your eyes closed", and rich content will present twenty films, plays, exhibitions and conversations with guests. The organizers of the festival are Gay lesbian info center "Glic" and the Belgrade Youth Center.
Live show "Sex, work and media: Why (not) today?" opens the festival. Tatjana Vojtehovski will run her show on Thursday, 7th December from 19:00 to 20:30, and she will discuss with her guests the topics she started in 1995. Following is the exhibition of Vladica Culic "Orgies of the hangar virgins" and the opening ceremony from 21:00 when Ida Prester performs. The guests of the festival are Robin Campillo, Bruce Labruce, Lady Galore, Nik Jovicic - Sas, Branislav Princip, Barbara Remüller, Björn Franck and many others. On the last day of the festival, 13th December from 21:00, awards for the best feature, short and documentary film will be awarded. Special guest is Sonja Sajzor.
The Merlinka festival was first organized in 2009 with the idea of promoting films on the subject of the same sex relations, not included in regular film repertoires. The goal of the festival is to achieve gay and lesbian rights as well as to reduce homophobia via film as an art. It was named after Merlinka, the person who starred in the film "Marble Ass" by Zelimir Zilnik, who opened the first festival.
Who is Merlinka
Vjeran Miladinovic Merlinka is the most famous transvestite from the Belgrade streets. He was killed on 22nd March 2003. He was engaged in prostitution and was the first trans person represented in the public. In addition to the mentioned film role, the audience met him in the autobiography "Terezin sin" (Teresa's son). He lived in the part of the Observatory, and the neighborhood remembered him as a big-hearted man who loved dogs.
