Amongst its 200+ film programme, the Sarajevo Film Festival marked its 30th year with a rather healthy lineup of documentaries and non-fiction activities, screenings, and talks. Held from August 16 to 23 in the Bosnian and Herzegovinian capital, the festival engaged with many of the pressing issues of our time, from regional trauma to personal struggles to global crises. Curated by Rada Šešić (also co-curator of Docu Rough Cut Boutique, alongside Martichka Bozhilova), the program featured 21 films and a mix of world, international, European, regional, and Bosnian and Herzegovinian premieres. The competition jury comprised Mandy Chang from Fremantle and Marek Hovorka of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, and Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai.
The competition
From the films in competition, Dad’s Lullaby was a particular stand out. A timely film, the Ukrainian-Romanian-Croatian co-production captures the struggles of a Ukrainian war veteran dealing with PTSD and the invisible wounds of combat. Another notable entry was Anna Rubi’s Your Life Without Me, an introspective look into the life-altering impacts of personal loss that was bestowed with the festival’s Human Rights Award.
Overall, the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary Film went to Olga Chernykh’s festival favourite, A Picture to Remember. The Heart of Sarajevo for Best Short Documentary Film was awarded to Like a Sick Yellow by Norika Sefa from Kosovo. Daphné Hérétakis’ What We Ask of a Statue Is That It Doesn’t Move snagged the Special Jury Award for its exploration of history and collective memory. The Special Award for Promoting Gender Equality was awarded to Cent’anni by Maja Doroteja Prelog. This Slovenia-Italy-Poland-Serbia-Austria co-production received a €7,500 prize for its portrayal of gender issues across generations. The Audience Award for Documentary Film was bestowed upon No Other Land, directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, which chronicles the lives of Palestinians living under occupation.
The true documentary standout for me was The Sky Above Zenica, directed by Zlatko Pranjić and Nanna Frank Møller. The festival’s Environmental Awareness Award, The Sky Above Zenica is an exposé on the environmental degradation caused by the corporate ironworks in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, portraying the disconnect between the plant’s public persona as an eco-friendly entity and the grim reality of its operations. The film’s screening was followed by a panel discussion moderated by journalist and director Robert Zuber, which included the filmmakers, producer, and the Netherlands Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Henk van den Dool. The conversation delved into the broader implications of environmental negligence and the need for stronger international oversight, particularly within the multinational space.
Focused initially on fiction films, CineLink has expanded to include documentaries, thanks to partnerships with organisations like the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and Documentary Campus. The introduction of the CineLink Impact Award last year also shows the festival’s commitment to being a launchpad for socially impactful documentaries. This year, the CineLink Impact Award went to the environmentally-focused Ukrainian war documentary Divia by Dmytro Hreshko, a staple of workshops and industry programmes over the past year.
CineLink Industry Days
Now in its 14th year, the Docu Rough Cut Boutique continues to promote new documentary talent into the broader region. Each year, this programme, a collaboration between the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Balkan Documentary Center, selects five projects for an intensive mentorship process that spans workshops in Sofia, Cluj-Napoca, and Sarajevo. The Boutique culminates during this festival at CineLink Industry Days. This year’s Docu Rough Cut Boutique lineup included projects like Electing Miss Santa (dir. Raisa Razmerita; Moldova, Romania), Divia (dir. Dmytro Hreshko; Ukraine, Poland, Netherlands), Kartli (dir. Tamar Kalandadze, Julien Pebrel; Georgia, France), and In Hell With Iv’o (dir. Kristina Nikolova; Bulgaria, USA). In the end, In Hell With Ivo won both the HBO and Avantpost awards, receiving €22,000 in cash and in-kind services. Other awards included the CAT&Docs Award for Kartl. The DOK Leipzig Preview Award went to Electing Miss Santa, who earned the opportunity to present at DOK Leipzig 2024. The Movies That Matter Award and the East Silver Caravan Award also recognised Electing Miss Santa.
Additionally, Ji.hlava IDFF and Documentary Campus’ Docu Talents from the East programme, in its 20th year, again spotlighted emerging documentary projects from Central and Eastern Europe. The big winners were Baltic UXO, a Lithuanian-German-Latvian co-production directed by Agnė Dovydaitytė and Alexander Belinski, and Tomas Wolski’s The Big Chief, which won the Current Time TV and DAFfilms awards, respectively.
This year, the CineLink talks focused heavily on the intersection of documentary filmmaking and new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). In sessions like «AI in Film: The Changing Relationship between Filmmakers and Audiences» and «About Seeing and Believing: On the Use and Effects of Generative AI in Documentary Film,» experts and industry figures discussed AI’s ethical implications and potential in documentary production. Like most discussions of this nature, no tangible consensus was reached.
Narrative
In addition to its documentaries, the 2024 Sarajevo Film Festival also presented its usual selection of fiction, narrative, and drama films. The festival’s narrative competition featured several standout films, with the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film going to the Bosnian drama Mother Mara, directed by Mirjana Karanović. It also honoured several film figures with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo for outstanding contributions to cinema. This year’s recipients included producer Philippe Bober, Christof Papousek, director Alexander Payne, actress Meg Ryan, and filmmakers Paul Schrader, Elia Suleiman, and John Turturro. The festival’s drama series category continued, with I Know Your Soul and Smashing It among the big winners. Regarding narrative film, the personal standout was Coralie Fargeat’s utterly out-of-control Cannes-premiered body horror spectacle, The Substance and Payal Kapadia’s (A Night of Knowing Nothing) delicate human drama, All We Imagine as Light.
