Slobodan Šijan (photo by M. Vesovic)

Born in Belgrade in 1946, one of the most prominent movie directors in the Balkans. Directed feature films Who's That Singing Over There, The Marathon Family, How I Was Systematically Destroyed by an Idiot and Strangler vs. Strangler, among others. In addition to his work as a scriptwriter, teacher, movie critic and writer, he is also renowned as a video and multimedia artist and painter. He has written or edited a number of books on visual arts and cinema (John Ford, Jean-Marie Straub, Hitchcock’s Vertigo, his monography on his own intermedia art practices and experiences Filmski letak 1976-1979 (2009), Razgovori oko filma (2010) – conversations about his exhibitions.

The retrospective of his art and multimedia works- Slobodan Šijan/Oko filma was on in April this year at The Museum of Contemporary Arts, Belgrade. The accompanying catalogue included works and papers by Slobodan Šijan and Introduction by the Curator, Dejan Sretenović. This exhibition won him the best exhibition in 2009 award at the Annual DIUS (The Serbian Society of Art Historians).
Slobodan Šijan initiated the concept of round table on the topic of Southeast Europe Women Directors at the 37th FEST. The book with the same title was also edited by him to be published in Serbian and English in 2009. Slobodan Šijan is Professor of Film Directing at the Belgrade Academy of Drama.