Post of Serbia - Postage stamps for half a century of FEST

2/28/2022

Postage stamps for half a century of FEST

In honour of a great jubilee, PE Post of Serbia issued commemorative postage stamps “FEST's 50”. Adam Sofronijević, Director of WU “Srbijamarka” in the Post of Serbia, and Ivan Karl, Secretary for Culture of the City of Belgrade, President of the Fest Board, talked about and presented to the public this special and innovative philatelic issue today at a conference held in the KOMBANK Hall.

The slogan of the jubilee 50th FEST is NEW.BRAVE.WORLD, held from February 25 to March 6, is almost an anagram of the first one, which read BRAVE NEW WORLD as the novel of Aldous Huxley.

 ”Today, FEST does not only have 50 magnificent festival emanations, but it has also secured a place in the history of Serbian philately with an innovative solution of commemorative postage stamps in the form of a film tape, which will visually preserve selected festival posters for history. The conceptual solution speaks of the importance of the film festival, which for half a century has become part of the cultural and public discourse of the Serbian, European, and world cultural space. The beginning and the end of the philatelic film tape of the whole duration of FEST are marked by a frame - a postage stamp with posters of the first and fiftieth festival. Among them are five frames - vignettes, selected FEST posters, representing a decade of exciting, almost epic, film story of FEST, which we all follow and know with nostalgia and love”, said Adam Sofronijević, Director of WU “Srbijamarka” in the Post of Serbia.

Sofronijević added that the FEST is always in the best company, therefore the author of this philatelic issue is Nadežda Skočajić, creator of stamps for the Post of Serbia, who in 2014 won the prestigious award for the most beautiful postage stamp in Europe, chosen by the audience. He especially thanked Ivan Karl for the professional cooperation in the realization of this issue.

“When FEST hopefully turns 100 years, I doubt anyone will use telegrams and postage stamps. That is why this special and collectable edition of the Post of Serbia will have philatelic value one day, as a trace of our festival and time. The world that surrounds us, will be new after Corona, and for it, we shall need courage to fright, for ideas and survival. Upon us are films that have yet to be made, and above all, challenges that sometimes even a film cannot predict. Let us be brave and capable for a new world and a new FEST in it, for another fifty years...”, said Ivan Karl, City Secretary for Culture and President of the Fest Board.