All the fun of the Tirana book fair

the economist
Books in Albania
Nov 15th 2011, 11:15 by T.J.

TIRANA
IN RECENT years the news from Albania has been dominated by the endless political struggle between Sali Berisha, the prime minister, and Edi Rama, the leader of the opposition. But suddenly, the clouds seem to have lifted. Mr Rama’s Socialists are back in parliament, talking to Mr Berisha’s people, and a resolution has been found to a disputed mayoral election in Tirana. Relieved Albanians are now talking about something else: books....more...
read more: the economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/11/books-albania

Israeli Architect Warns Albania against Damaging Heritage

balkan insight
20 SEP 2011 / 12:45

An ongoing road development project in southern Albania could threaten archaeological heritage sites, a member of the International Council of Monuments and Sites, ICMS, has warned.

Besar Likmeta Tirana

Giora Solar, an Israeli perseveration architect who led a joint fact-finding mission with UNESCO last year aimed at identifying the impact a road expansion would have on Albania’s Butrint Archeological Park, said ongoing road developments along the coast could have a detrimental affect on heritage sites....more...
read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albania-road-project-poses-threat-to-world-heritage-site

A Sarajevo Bunker Takes on New Life as Art Museum

ny times

 SCENE/SEEN

By GINANNE BROWNELL

Published: August 5, 2011
The latest on the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more. Join the discussion.

Originally begun in the 1950s and completed in the late 1970s, the bunker — which cost over $4.6 billion — was intended to be used as a shelter for the Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito and 350 elites of the Yugoslav Army in case of a nuclear attack. Located an hour from Sarajevo, near the central Herzegovinian town of Konjic, the bunker is built into the green and lush hillside overlooking the tumbling Nevetra River and is surrounded by conifer peaks and valleys....more....

read more: ny times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/arts/06iht-scsarajevo06.html?ref=bosniaandherzegovina

Angelina Jolie honoured at Sarajevo Film Festival

telegraph

Bosnia

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie paid a surprise visit to Sarajevo with her partner Brad Pitt to receive an honorary award at the city's film festival.

3:42PM BST 31 Jul 2011

"I will start crying if you don't stop," Oscar-award-winning actress said as the audience at the Sarajevo National Theatre took to their feet for a standing ovation.....more...
read more: telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bosnia/8673500/Angelina-Jolie-honoured-at-Sarajevo-Film-Festival.html

Angelina Jolie receives Heart of Sarajevo award

telegraph

Film news

A tearful Angelina Jolie has received the Heart of Sarajevo award in Bosnia for her "active engagement in the complexities of the real world".

9:16PM BST 31 Jul 20112

Jolie chose Bosnia's 1992-95 war as the setting for her first film as a director. In the Land of Blood and Honey is due to be released in December.
She has also visited Bosnia as a goodwill ambassador for the UN's refugee agency UNHCR and funded the construction of several houses for returnees in eastern Bosnia....more...

read more: telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8673569/Angelina-Jolie-receives-Heart-of-Sarajevo-award.html

Where to? Sarajevo films -video-

euronews

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Cinema - Festival

25/07 17:49 CET

This year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, from 22-30 July, projects southeastern Europe. This year’s entries include ‘Orchestra’, by Bosnian director Pjer Žalica, about good people in “the times that first pampered us and then crushed us”, and Aldo Tardozzi’s ‘Spots’, about a disoriented new Croatian generation, with taxi sex, robbery, murder and nightclubs....more...
read more: euronews
http://www.euronews.net/2011/07/25/where-to-sarajevo-films/

Heritage Group Says Albanian Patrimony Needs Protection

balkan insight
19 JUL 2011 / 11:58

The South East European Heritage Network has asked the Albanian government to intensify its efforts to combat illegal trafficking in artworks and antiques.

Besar Likmeta Tirana

“We call on decision-markers and political structures, organizations and responsible institutions to use all the necessary legal means to combat these phenomena,” the network said in a statement....more...

read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/heritage-groups-call-in-albania-to-combat-artworks-trafficking

The Exit Festival in pictures

se times
15/07/2011

Images from the region's largest music event, held every year at the Petrovaradin Fortress near Novi Sad.
By Ivana Jovanovic for Southeast European Times in Novi Sad – 15/07/11
This year's Exit Festival offered fans what they have come to expect: top acts from around the world and the region, and an atmosphere of youthful energy bordering on anarchy.

Among the internationally renowned performers headlining the event were British rapper M.I.A., LA punk rockers Bad Religion, the indie group Arcade Fire, and DJs such as James Zabeila and DJ Tiga....more...
read more: se times
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2011/07/15/feature-04

Serbia’s 12th EXIT Closes on High Note

balkan insight
11 JUL 2011 / 12:59

Some 600 performers entertained 130,000 music fans in an event that has become a major money-spinner and advert for postwar Serbia.

Bojana Barlovac Belgrade

Serbia’s northern capital of Novi Sad marked the end of the 12th EXIT music festival, which drew about 130,000 people over four days to see some 600 performers.

The annual event has turned into a major tourist draw for Serbia - a country that is otherwise short of obvious attractions for foreign visitors....more....
read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/12th-exit-festival-closes-doors-with-electrifying-nick-cave

Kosovo Albanians Query Law on Serb Village

balkan insight
11 JUL 2011 / 08:44

Plan to give Velika Hoca special competencies to protect its religious and cultural heritage has annoyed the local muncipal officials, who say it will aggravate ethnic tension.

Petrit Collaku Pristina

The small village of Velika Hoca, 25 km fromPrizren, home to some 400 inhabitants, a medieval monastery and several churches, has become the centre of a dispute, thanks to a draft law that aims to give it special powers to preserve its ancient heritage....more....
read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-row-over-government-s-plan-on-serb-cultural-heritage-continues

Exit “Raves Up” Engine of Serbia’s Battered Economy

balkan insight
06 JUL 2011 / 10:23

Once the saviour of Serbia’s political image, the music festival is now praised for its contribution to state coffers.

Gordana Andric

As fun-loving foreigners flock to Exit every year, they also help the festival pour millions of euros into an economy struggling with recession and the legacy of war....more....

read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/exit-raves-up-engine-of-serbia-s-battered-economy

Novi Pazar’s Cultural Wealth And Versatility – Analysis

transconflict
Posted on June 30th 2011 in the category Serbia by TransConflict
Novi Pazar’s entrepreneurship, combined with its traditional cultural and historical wealth, provide assets that should be capitalized on by both Serbs and Bosniaks, regardless of their political or ethno-religious differences, for the city to move forward and flourish as it did in the nineties....more...

read more: transconflict.com
http://www.transconflict.com/2011/06/novi-pazars-cultural-wealth-and-versatility-306/

UN seeks to erase Serbian heritage by naming it “kosovan”

serbianna
M. Bozinovich Blog

Friday, July 1, 2011
June 30, 2011 – 11:11 am

France, whose soldiers once fought arm with arm with Serbs in WWI, sought to wipe out Serbian heritage in Kosovo by lobbying at the UN to rename it into “kosovan”....more...
read more: serbianna.com
http://serbianna.com/blogs/bozinovich/archives/1300

Exit looks to the future

se times
30/06/2011

With the Milosevic regime consigned to history's dustbin, Serbia's internationally-known music festival finds relevance in a new era.
By Ivana Jovanovic for Southeast European Times in Novi Sad -- 30/06/11
When the first Exit festival took place in 2000, organiser Dushan Kovacevic was a 22-year-old electrical engineering student and member of the anti-Milosevic group Оtpor. He longed to see world-class musical events come to Serbia, and to have the opportunity to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds....more...
read more: se times
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2011/06/30/feature-04

Serbia given a minute to defend its heritage

blic online
DISAPPOINTMENT AT UNESCO

I. Mastilović – Jasnić

01. 07. 2011. - 00:02h
Foto: Nebojša Marković
Comments 0
‘Attempt that four Serbian monuments of culture – monasteries Pecka Patrijarsija, Decani, Gracanica and Bogorodica Ljeviska are renamed as ‘Kosovo monuments’ is the most flagrant violation of the international law and is shameful attempt to support those who want to erase every trace of Serbian presence in Kosovo over centuries’, Sladjana Prica, Deputy Minister for Multilateral Issues says for ‘Blic’....more...
read more: blic online
http://english.blic.rs/In-Focus/7799/Serbia-given-a-minute-to-defend-its-heritage

Bosnian novelist has town built in his honour

guardian.co.uk
Work of Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić to be commemorated with 17,000-square metre 'Andrićgrad' in the Republika Srpska

Alison Flood

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 June 2011 13.14 BST

Work is set to begin building a new town inspired by the writing of Yugoslavian Nobel literature laureate Ivo Andrić, following plans by film director Emir Kusturica and the Republika Srpska's government.

Andrić, who won the Nobel in 1961, is best known for his novel The Bridge on the Drina, the inspiration behind the new town of Andrićgrad. Written by the author during the second world war, it tells of the three centuries of conflict the bridge of the novel's title has witnessed, situated as it is in the small Bosnian town of Višegrad....more...
read more: guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/28/bosnian-novelist-new-town-ivo-andric

Albania's 'second greatest living writer' was a hoax, but does it really matter?

guardian.co.uk
The author of Winter in Tirane, Jiri Kajane, turned out to be fictional himself. This kind of hoaxing has a long and irrepressible history

The Albanian writer Jiri Kajane, who is about to die this morning aged 65, found more literary success abroad than he ever did at home. The Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha was no place for free spirits, and Kajane could count himself lucky that his satirical drama Neser Perdite (Tomorrow, Every Day) earned him no more than a ban from the ministry of culture. In 1981 the play had one performance in Tirana. Thereafter, Kajane stuck to short stories that were to make his small reputation in the west. Long after Hoxha's death in 1985, Kajane felt his position too precarious for him to publish work in Albania. By the end of the last century he was more famous in Chicago than he was in his birthplace, Kruje, the small hill town recognised in Albanian history for its resistance to the Ottoman empire and Italian conquest. It was a paradox he enjoyed.....more...
read more: guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/17/ian-jack-jiri-kajane-albanian-hoax

Amy Winehouse Booed at Belgrade Concert

balkan insight
19 JUN 2011 / 14:50

Controversial British singer Amy Winehouse was booed by crowds as she was too incapacitated to perform at a concert in Belgrade that kicked off her 12-day European tour.

Bojana Barlovac Belgrade
Some 20,000 people gathered at Belgrade’s fortress on Saturday night to see the highly-promoted concert of Amy Winehouse....more....
read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/amy-winehouse-booed-at-belgrade-concert

Subotica Mourns Wreckage of Serbia’s Oldest Theatre

balkan insight
07 Jun 2011 / 14:10

As work grinds to a halt on a controversial and costly plan to refurbish this ancient theatre, opponents of the plan feel their worst fears have been amply justified.
Milan Lisica
Four years after the city council in Subotica controversially decided to extensively rebuild the neoclassical National Theatre, the oldest in Serbia, the building remains an eyesore.....more....
read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/subotica-mourns-wreckage-of-serbia-s-oldest-theatre

read more: balkan insight

Fans Rush to Download Ceca's New Single

balkan insight
31 May 2011 / 14:41

Some 150,000 fans of turbo folk diva Ceca rushed to download her new song "Steta za Mene" in the first hour after it was released on Monday.

Bojana Barlovac

Belgrade
The website Miligram Music was down and unavailable for hours as Ceca's fans rushed to download her latest song. The album is to be released on June 17....more...

read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/150-000-fans-rush-to-download-ceca-s-new-single-in-an-hour