Now reaching its 28th edition, the Sarajevo Film Festival (running 12-19 August) has announced its competition sections, where 51 films will vie for the Heart of Sarajevo awards. The individual competition sections — for feature, documentary, fiction short, and student work — will be composed of 21 world, seven international, one European, 21 regional, and one national premieres.
The feature competition will number eight titles, down from 10 the previous year, and be split evenly between world and regional premieres as well as having a majority of female filmmakers. A Ballad by Aida Begić, the festival’s most notable Bosnian world premiere, is featured in this section, after being developed through the festival’s CineLink Industry Days. The film features a nice meta-element, where an unambitious housewife and mother returns to the town she grew up in, and upon learning a film is being shot in her neighbourhood, decides to audition. The Best Feature Film Prize will be an award in the amount of €16,000, co-sponsored by the Tourism Association of Canton Sarajevo.
The documentary competition has 22 titles, up from 16 the previous year, although eight of them could be classified as shorts, with one of these a new work by the recently Cannes-selected director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk. There is also a film with a 47-minute runtime, making it a mid-length or featurette: Beauty of the Beast by Anna Eszter Nemes, a Hungary-Serbia co-production. This section’s top feature prize will receive an award of €4,000, sponsored by the Government of Switzerland.
The programming team, led by the festival’s Creative Director Izeta Građević, viewed a total of 751 titles submitted for the festival, with its competitive sections reserved for films from the Balkan and Eastern European region.
Previously announced by the festival were Honorary Heart of Sarajevo awardees Sergei Loznitsa, Paul Schrader, and Ruben Östlund, whose Palme d’Or victor Triangle of Sadness [+] will also open the festival.
The full list of competition titles is as follows:
Feature Film Competition
A Ballad – Aida Begić (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Men of Deeds – Paul Negoescu (Romania/Bulgaria)
Riders – Dominik Mencej (Slovenia/Croatia/Serbia/Italy/Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Six Weeks – Noémi Veronika Szakonyi (Hungary)
Corsage [+] – Marie Kreutzer (Austria/Luxembourg/Germany/France)
Klondike [+] – Maryna Er Gorbach (Ukraine/Turkey)
Safe Place – Juraj Lerotić (Croatia)
Serviam – I Will Serve – Ruth Mader (Austria)
Documentary Film Competition
Diary of a Bride of Christ – Marta Smerechynska (Ukraine)
Lights of Sarajevo – Srđan Perkić (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles – Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk (Ukraine/USA)
Paying a Visit to Fortuna – Mátyás Kálmán (Hungary/Croatia)
Shadowed by the Plane Tree – Aynur Elgunesh (Azerbaijan)
The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters – Cătălina Tesăr, Dana Bunescu (Romania)
The Film Factory – Silvestar Kolbas (Croatia)
Too Close – Botond Püsök (Romania/Hungary)
Babajanja – Ante Zlatko Stolica (Croatia)
Retreat – Anabela Angelovska (North Macedonia/Germany)
Bigger Than Trauma [+] – Vedrana Pribačić (Croatia)
Another Spring [+] – Mladen Kovačević (Serbia/France/Qatar)
A Provincial Hospital [+] – Ilan Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva (Bulgaria/Germany)
Atonal Glow – Alexander Koridze (Georgia)
Beauty of the Beast – Anna Eszter Nemes (Hungary/Serbia)
Fragile Memory – Igor Ivanjko (Ukraine)
Living Together – Thomas Fürhapter (Austria)
Microbiome – Stavros Petropoulos (Greece)
No Place For You in Our Town [+] – Nikolay Stefanov (Bulgaria)
Ribs – Farah Hasanbegović (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Hungary/Belgium/Portugal)
Museum of the Revolution – Srđan Keča (Serbia/Croatia/Czech Republic)
Short Film Competition
Affricate – Anna Gyimesi (Hungary)
It is Quiet Here. – Novruz Hikmet, Olena Podolianko (Ukraine)
My Neighbour Wolf – Nebojša Slijepčević (Croatia/Serbia)
Together, Alone – Kasim Ördek (Turkey/France)
Alba Vulba – Dorka Vermes (Hungary)
Amok – Balázs Turai (Hungary/Romania)
Money and Happiness – Ana Nedeljković, Nikola Majdak Jr. (Serbia/Slovenia/Slovakia)
On Xerxes’ Throne – Evi Kalogiropoulou (Greece)
That’s How the Summer Ended – Matjaž Ivanišin (Slovenia/Hungary/Italy)
5pm Seaside – Valentin Sejskal (Greece/Austria)
Student Film Competition
It’s Not Cold for Mosquitoes – Josip Lukić (Croatia)
My Nikola – Martina Marasović (Croatia)
Rainbow – Sandra Marić (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
The Other End of the Street – Kálmán Nagy (Austria/Hungary)
Water Balloons – Aleksa Borković (Serbia)
Hollywood – Leni Gruber, Alex Reinberg (Austria)
Mon Ami – Carina Dasoveanu (Romania)
My Sister and I – Theodor Ioniță (Romania)
Craze – Bianka Szelestey (Hungary)
Resting Fog – Nikolett Fábián (Hungary)
The Analogy of Space – Oleksandr Hoisan (Ukraine)
Source: Cineuropa
