Dimitar Anakiev (Dimitar Grigorov Anakiev) is an independent filmmaker, writer and poet, who was born in Belgrade in 1960. He completed his Faculty of Medicine at University of Niš in Niš, Serbia, in 1986 and worked seven years as a medical doctor. He resided in Slovenia, beginning in 1987, but shortly thereafter and without warning found himself among the victims of administrative ethnic cleansing ("Erased"), the result of secret illegal action enacted 26 February 1992 by the democratic Slovenian government one year after the disintegration of the state of Yugoslavia. For 10 years Anakiev was compelled to live without personal documents (such as passport or personal identification), rendering him an invisible prisoner of the Slovenian democracy. At this point he purchased a small video camera and began his film career, in an attempt to make himself and other marginal Balkan people visible. The success of his films (including winning the Slovenian national film award) has made it possible for Anakiev to continue filmmaking as a producer, director and writer. His company, Dimitar Anakiev Films s.p.-DAF (now Anakiev Production) specializes in socially engaged films of the Balkans in the post-communist era. Anakiev is a founding member of the Slovenian Director Guild, and a member of the Slovenian Filmmaker Association.
Selected films[edit]
- Amigo, 36', DV, KDZ Tolmin-AFC Beograd, 2003
- Rubbed Out, 45', DV, Dimitar Anakiev Films, Tolmin, 2004
- Ti si jedini gazda ove kuće, 15’, 35 mm, DAF, Tolmin, 2006
- Srpski ekseri, 50', DV, DAF-Film Fokus, Radovljica-Niš, 2007
- Poslednji Žilnik, 61', DV, DAF-Film Fokus, Radovljica-Niš, 2007
- Slovenija moja dežela, 51 min, HD, Anakiev Production, Radovljica, 2012
- Normalno življenje, 86 min, HD, Anakiev Production, Radovljica, 2012
- Not Allowed, 45 min, UHD, Anakiev Production, Radovljica, 2018
Film awards[edit]
- Vesna National Award for Documentary Film, Celje, 2003
- High Artistic Achievement Golden Knight, Moscow Film Festival, 2003
- Best Documentary, DokMa 2007, international competition, Maribor, 2007
- Bronze Horseshoe 2008, Asterfest, Strumica, 2008
Tributes[edit]
“Destiny of the erased people is for Mr. Anakiev an individual and collective tragedy that should actually never happen. The ultimate purpose of the film is to eliminate reasons, that caused this film to be made.”[1]
- Dr. Nikolai Jeffs, critic, University of Ljubljana
“Although Mr Anakiev is telling the story through the personal stories, he manages to show the lives of the erased through many different dimension and therefore offers a holistic picture.”
- Nataša Posel, director, Amnesty International Slovenia[2]
“Mr. Anakiev is a compassionate artist who seeks to improve life for his subjects and bring attention to the neglected, and in this, he is a rare and vital talent... Anakiev is in possession of personal methodology of documentary filmmaking which will enable him to follow destinies of his heroes with different ethnic backgrounds but at the same time to present the realities in social, political and economic circumstances...”[2]
- Želimir Žilnik, Serbian film director
"As an erased person, Anakiev’s radical ethical act was to give up practicing medicine to become a film-maker. He helped educate a generation of Slovenians through powerful films that juxtaposed the actions of politicians and rightwing nationals with the day-to-day privations of erased people. His use of montage reflects Eisenstein’s revolutionary dialectics and, ironically, Anakiev’s film practices raise awareness of the brutal imperialism that is sometimes embedded in what we have come to think of as democracy."[3]
- Stuart C. Aitken, anthropologist, San Diego State University
"."Dimitar Anakiev has been a filmmaker from the social margin for three decades - by subject matter and by the circumstances in which he creates. He was one of the first who treated the problem of erased people in Slovenia – he also was erased for ten years himself -. His first documentary, Amigo, a portrait of Walter Dragosavljević Rutar, won the award for best documentary at the Slovenian Film Festival in Celje in 2003. He also receives awards from international festivals. He is not only independent in production, but also in film format choices: everything from a few minutes to a feature film can be found. If his films are bound by any red thread, this is loyalty to the documentary style of work and stubborn engagement for the benefit of all possible sidekicks." "
- Zdravko Duša, Slovenian screen writer, dramaturg, translator and editor
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1 comment:
I republish it here in panic after I saw that the editor of Slovenian Wikipedia changes and erases text in a way he wants. I protested by not much room to negotiate, he/she act as a power. I succeed to change "Serbian doctor" into "Slovenian doctor" and in occupation to add "film director" otherwise my ethnicity and occupation are his/her judge. Also he/she delated my tributes on filmmaking. So I got anxious of Slovenian Erasers again.
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