Radoslav Zelenović, director of the Festival, spoke about the Festival history, recalling the enthusiasm which in 1992 inspired the initiators of the Festival to make an "impossible mission" possible.

He also announced that over 60 features and 15 documentaries from 30 countries were to be presented at the upcoming Festival.

Blažo Perović, director of the Open University in Subotica, said that one of the main goals in organizing this year's Festival was maintaining it at the last year’s level, despite the economic crisis and accordingly lower budget. He also expressed his hope that new Festival sponsors would be found for the next year in order to make it independent from the state budget. Besides, he pointed out that part of this year’s Festival programme would be taking place at a new venue - reconstructed Aleksandar Lifka Cinema.

Nikolai Nikitin, selector of the Official Selection, said that the main Festival programme comprised the best of recent European cinema. The programme proves how different those films may be and that it is impossible to classify them as “European film type”. He singled out the Spanish film Fat People, Romanian-German Medal of Honor, which he claims to be different from the majority of contemporary Romanian films, French 8 Times Up, depicting survival on social margins, and Polish Reverse about dark times of the Stalinist period. Besides, two films from this year’s Berlinale will also be presented – How I Ended the End of the Summer, and the film by Finnish director Aleksi Salmenperä, Bad Family, produced by Aki Kaurismäki. Nikitin also said he was particularly glad because the Festival would open with a Serbian film - The Woman with a Broken Nose by Srđan Koljević.

Petar Mitrić, selector of Parallels and Encounters and Young Spirit of Europe, announced ten films competing within the first programme, including films from Turkey, Georgia, Poland, Slovakia, as well as two Serbian films. As far as the latter is concerned, it consists of some twenty films which have only one thing in common – a filmmaker’s unusual approach to the subject matter of the film.

Miroslav Mogorović, executive director of the Festival, announced that in addition to the Aleksandar Lifka Award winners, Costa Gavras and Goran Marković, numerous other guests have confirmed their arrival, including Alexei Popogrebski, director of the film How I Ended the End of the Summer, Julie Gayet, the lead actress in 8Times Up, Franziska Weisz, an actress in Run If You Can, Dénes Orosz, a director of the film Polygamy, as well as representatives of all major film institutions from Hungary.

It was also said that the Underground Spirit Award winner and the rest the Young Spirit of Europe programme would be announced at the press conference to be held in Subotica on the 5th July.