City Sarajevo Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart bringing you another dose of this here weekly roundup. We’ll be taking a break next week for the August bank holiday but will be back in your inboxes in a fortnight for the new term. In the meantime, sign up here.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Olivér Rudolf’s “My Mother, the Monster” has won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award at Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink, its industry section that featured projects from Southeast Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The Hungarian feature film project, which is produced by Genovéva Petrovits at Kino Alfa, received a cash prize of €20,000 ($21,727). The film focuses on Éva, a mother in her forties who is disappointed with her life and tired of feeling insignificant.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has distanced itself from a controversial Serbian film that has been accused of glorifying Serbian nationalist groups after experts from the feature were screened at the festival’s industry forum.

Christopher Vourlias A World War II drama that critics say glorifies Serbian nationalist groups has sparked outrage at the Sarajevo Film Festival, with organizers under fire for allowing excerpts of the forthcoming film to screen and the mayor of Sarajevo demanding resignations in the ensuing dust-up. On Wednesday, the Sarajevo fest fought back, insisting that it was caught off-guard by the film’s inclusion at an industry event on Tuesday.

Tara Karajica Documentary filmmakers were reminded of the importance of storytelling during a panel discussion about their craft as part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry program Cinelink earlier this week. “It’s about telling the story. It doesn’t have to be a complex story.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Sarajevo Film Festival has modified its scheduled activities on Wednesday after the Bosnia and Herzegovina government declared it to be a “Day of Mourning” following three murders committed in Gradačac on Friday. The perpetrator, a bodybuilder, reportedly livestreamed the murder of his first victim, his former wife, on Instagram.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has canceled all social events and will halt red-carpet coverage set for tomorrow (Aug 16) to observe Bosnia’s national day of mourning following a high-profile triple murder-suicide in the country’s Northeastern region.

Christopher Vourlias To step inside Sarajevo’s Apollo cinema 30 years ago, you first had to find the door. The streets of the Bosnian capital were pitch black. Power cuts brought on by a crippling siege, which started in 1992 when Bosnian Serb forces surrounded the city, left the town plunged in darkness.

Tara Karajica In Brigitta Kanyaro’s debut feature, “Vagabondess,” the Romania-native Austria-based director takes her protagonist Camelia, a millennial mom, on the road in a bid to prevent her daughter from meeting her biological father. The road trip allows the film to explore issues of motherhood and migration in the age of fourth-wave feminism and TikTok. The film features in the Co-Production Market of Cinelink, the industry section of Sarajevo Film Festival, and is looking to woo co-producers.

Without a doubt, Charlie Kaufman is one of the most unique writers in modern film. Every time he has a new project, fans are always expecting a new, interesting spin on something we’ve seen before.

Sporting a grey WGA-branded “strike” t-shirt, writer-director Charlie Kaufman led a packed-out masterclass this morning in the main hall of the Bosnian Cultural Center at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “The Hollow” won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best TV drama series at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Sunday, and also came away with a host of other awards. The in-competition series came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The jury for the Docu Talents From the East Award, presented Sunday as part of CineLink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival, split the award between two projects: “A Picture to Remember” by Ukrainian director Olga Chernykh and producer Regina Maryanovska-Davidzon, and the Czech-Slovak co-production “Chronicle” by Martin Kollar. The award comes with a cash prize of $5,000. Eight documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe, planned for theatrical release during the next 12 months, were presented in the program, which is curated by the Ji.hlava Intl.

The Heart of Sarajevo awards for TV series, the Sarajevo Film Festival’s awards strand for TV shows, unraveled this evening, and they were dominated by two shows, the Serbian comedy Mom and Dad Are Playing War 2 (Tata Se Igraju Rata 2) and the Bosnian drama The Hollow (Kotlina).

Tara Karajica In her sophomore feature, contemporary fairytale “Rift in the Ice,” Serbian director Maja Miloš revisits the underbelly of Serbian society and explores women’s integrity and sexuality in the harsh reality of contemporary Serbia. The film is a co-production between Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Netherlands and Montenegro, and features in the works-in-progress section of Cinelink, the Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry program. It is hoping to woo partners and funds for completion.

Bono surprised attendees at the Sarajevo Film Festival in Bosnia with an a cappella rendition of Bob Marley‘s ‘Redemption Song’ – watch the moment below.The frontman and The Edge were present at the film festival for a special screening of U2‘s Kiss The Future documentary when the legendary Irish vocalist hopped on the mic to serenade the crowd.Fans quickly joined in to sing along to the track after Bono unexpected belted out the opening lines to the Bob Marley classic. Watch a clip of the performance below.#Bono & #TheEdge at the #SarajevoFilmFestival for #KissTheFuture: "Redemption Song"Video © @28th_sff"When Bono's voice meets the silver screen.

Christopher Vourlias It’s a welcome sight for any longtime visitors returning to Sarajevo, the white-jacketed waiters circling the terrace of the majestic, Austro-Hungarian-built Hotel Europe as film and TV industry professionals parse scripts and close deals amid the espresso-fueled chatter. Around them a haze of cigarette smoke hovers like the mist that settles each morning over the green hills that ring this scenic Bosnian city.

Christopher Vourlias U2 frontman Bono made a surprise appearance Friday night at the opening ceremony of the Sarajevo Film Festival, with the Irish pop star leading a rapturous crowd in a cappella rendition of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” The legendary vocalist, appearing alongside bandmate the Edge, took the stage after an emotional screening of “Kiss the Future,” director Nenad Cicin-Sain’s documentary, produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, about U2’s relationship with war-torn Sarajevo in the 1990s. Based on American-born aid worker Bill Carter’s “Fools Rush in: A Memoir,” the film chronicles the band’s efforts to publicize the plight of the city’s besieged civilians during the Bosnian War.

Bono made a surprise appearance at the Sarajevo Film Festival this evening, where he accompanied the crew behind the U2-inspired Bosnian war documentary Kiss The Future, which opened the festival. 

Tara Karajica At times Bosnia and Herzegovina has looked like it was stuck in a bit of a no-man’s land when it comes to film production, lacking the financial fire-power to press forward, but its TV series business is booming. The Southeast European country boasts two Oscar nominations – Danis Tanović’s “No Man’s Land,” which nabbed a statuette in 2002, and Jasmila Žbanić’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” which was nominated in 2021 – and its filmmakers have enjoyed success on the festival circuit, but it still hasn’t upped its meagre level of production, especially in terms of fiction features, with only one or two majority Bosnian films produced a year.

Tara Karajica In Sudabeh Mortezai’s provocative fifth feature, “Europa,” the Vienna-based director follows ambitious executive Beate from Europa, a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkans by seemingly promoting philanthropy and investment in underdeveloped areas. What Europa actually needs is to buy land from the locals in a remote Albanian valley. The film plays in Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Christopher Vourlias When the Sarajevo Film Festival returned to full strength last year after successive, slimmed-down pandemic editions, a robust turn-out was to be expected. For nearly three decades, the audience-facing event has been the cultural lifeblood of the lively, cosmopolitan city it calls home. The 2022 edition broke attendance records set in 2019, and just days after its online ticketing system launched this month, the fest appears on pace to surpass that mark again.

In the three years since the Sarajevo Film Festival launched its Heart of Sarajevo TV awards, much has changed in the Balkan region’s television sector thanks to investment from regional telecom companies in the local production space. Companies such as Bosnia and Herzegovina’s BH Telecom, the main sponsor of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, and Telecom Serbia have been flexing their financial muscle in a space that undercapitalized public broadcasters and once confident-but-now-nervous global streamers are yet to enter.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has long been the biggest showcase of Southeast European cinema and this year’s edition, which unspools on August 11, is on course to be its most reflective and regionally focused edition yet. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The lineup for Docu Talents From the East – a showcase of standout documentary films from Central and Eastern Europe that are in post-production – has been unveiled. Eight documentary projects will be presented on Aug. 13 at Sarajevo Film Festival.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor French-based sales agency Lightdox has acquired the international rights to feature documentary “Body” by Slovenian director and screenwriter Petra Seliškar ahead of its world premiere at the 29th edition of Sarajevo Film Festival. The trailer for the film has just been released (below). The film screens on Aug.

Christopher Vourlias Wide Management has acquired world sales rights to Christina Ioakeimidi’s “Medium,” a story of first love set against the stifling heat of an Athenian summer that world premieres Aug. 14 in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Based on a novel by Giorgos Sibardis, the film follows 16-year-old Eleftheria (Aggeliki Beveratou), who escapes the suffocating reality of the Greek countryside to visit her pregnant sister (Katerina Zisoudi) in Athens.

Writer-director Charlie Kaufman is set to be honored with the Sarajevo Film Festival’s career achievement Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award during the festival’s upcoming 29th edition.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman will receive the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival, in recognition of his contribution to the art of filmmaking. The festival will also hold an open-air screening of 2002’s “Adaptation,” which was written by Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its official selection for this year’s edition, with Elene Naveriani’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry among the titles playing in Competition.