FFC on the road: Sarajevo Film Festival

A view from the "engine room" of the Sarajevo Film Festival:

at the "Cinelink" film market, filmmakers - directors, producers, world sales, festival representatives - come together to talk about films that are currently in production. Some are looking for co-producers, others for festivals or distributors. One of the centrepieces is the "works-in-progress" screenings, where 20-minute excerpts are shown from films awaiting their world premieres.

Bernd Buder, FFC programme director was there and has been looking for films already for the 2024 year. "The Sarajevo Film Festival was founded during the siege of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian capital in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. Consequently, it still focuses on the medium of film as a means of dialogue and cultural self-assurance - values that are also essential for the FFC. For us, the largest film festival in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia is one of the most important places for scouting films and a great opportunity to meet filmmakers from the region."

The festival was overshadowed this year by an incident in the small northern Bosnian town of Gradačac, where a man killed his wife and streamed the murder live on the internet. There was a national mourning ceremony on the festival Wednesday as a result, and all parties, networking events and film screenings were cancelled.

The Sarajevo Film Festival competition screened, among others, Tudor Giurgiu's new film FREEDOM (Romania, Hungary) about the fall of the Ceausescu regime in transilvanian Sibiu and Elene Naveriani's rousing romantic arthouse comedy BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY (Georgia, Switzerland). Both films will be screened at the upcoming FFC.

More information: www.sff.ba