The travel documentary “Cultural route of Becharac & Ganga” is about the local heritage of Pleternica in Croatia and Tomislavgrad in Bosnia and Herzegovina, told through the eyes of London-based YouTuber Julian McDonnell.
In an effort to introduce a new tourist offer based on the region’s rich cultural heritage, partners from the Becharac & Ganga project, co-financed within the Priority Axis 3 of the Programme, set up a project idea dealing with regional folk songs protected by UNESCO – bećarac and ganga. Partners from Pleternica (CRO) and Tomislavgrad (BiH) have protected the names “Becharac Museum” in Pleternica and “Ganga Museum” in Tomislavgrad as intellectual property. This was seen as an ideal opportunity to further develop cross-border tourism and protect cultural and historical heritage of the region.
In addition to constructing new town squares in Pleternica and Tomislavgrad, which will be named after bećarac and ganga, and branding destinations throughout the project area, one of the project’s activities is making a documentary film. Seeing an opportunity to promote the documentary and in this way attract more tourists to these parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, partners submitted the documentary to several international film festivals. One of them was the Global India International Film Festival where the “Cultural route of Becharac & Ganga” won the best documentary film award.
The Global India International Film Festival takes place in Hinjawadi Pune, Maharashtra in India annually for the last 3 years and awards animated and experimental short films, screenplays, documentary films, music videos, web series, television series, etc. This year’s edition included documentaries and films from a number of countries.
Travel documentary “Cultural route of Becharac & Ganga” is filmed in the area of Pleternica and Tomislavgrad, and shows people, customs, cultural and tourist sights of these two cities. The story is told by a typical Englishman, Julian McDonnell: a stand-up comedian, YouTuber, and tourist promoter from London. The film also uses footage of both cities and their events, interesting facts, historical, cultural and traditional heritage, as well as gastronomic offer during the year, all directed by the author Alen Kocić.
In addition to the Global India International Film Festival, the film was submitted for awards at film festivals in Bulgaria, Spain, Latvia, Turkey, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Azerbaijan, Maldives, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Making travel documentaries, such as the bećarac and ganga one, is a great way to promote the value of local heritage and make it understandable to wider audiences. We congratulate the Becharac & Ganga project and wish them lots of success on upcoming film festivals!
See the documentary here. For more info on project activities, follow Becharac & Ganga’s Facebook page.
The Becharac & Ganga project involves five partners from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and is co-funded with 1.961.098,00 EUR of ERDF and IPA II funds of the Interreg IPA CBC Programme Croatia – Bosnia and Herzegovina – Montenegro 2014-2020. The project started on 1 June 2017 and is expected to finish on 30 September 2019.
