Sarajevo: Serbia's Taramount acquires 'To The Hilt'; Avant Premieres wrap

Belgrade-based distribution company Taramount Film has acquired Stole Popov’s To The Hilt for the territories of the former Yugoslavia.

The period epic mixes action and romance against the background of the bloody post-revolutionary period that occurred following the Macedonian uprising of 1903 against the Ottoman Empire.

The film is produced by Triangl Film, Sektor Film Skopje, and fx3x, and stars regional stalwarts Inti Sraj, Saško Kocev, Martin Jordanoski, Toni Mihajlovski, Miki Manojlović, Nikola Kojo, and Nikola Ristanovski.

Taramount is planning release during the first quarter of 2016.

Avant Premieres

The film screened at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 14-22) as part of the Avant Premieres section, established last year.

The programme is designed to present upcoming films to distributors and exhibitors, and this year it included three public screenings.

In addition to To The Hilt, audiences and industry had the chance to see Bosnian director Nenad Djurić’s Yugoslavia-themed comedy Thousand, and Stevan Filipović’s Next To Me, which received the Young Audience Award at Sarajevo, after its world premiere at the Pula Film Festival, where it won the international competition.

Next To Me is also a Taramount title and they will release it in Serbia, Montenegro and Republika Srpska on Sept 24, and in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina a week later.

Industry section

The closed industry part of Avant Premieres brought distributors and exhibitors together, so that the latter could see trailers and excerpts for the distributors’ new films.

Belgrade-based Megacom Film (MCF) came with the highly-anticipated Humidity by Nikola Ljuca (kickstarted by a Hubert Bals Fund grant); Miloš Radović’s tragicomedy Train Drivers’ Secret starring Lazar Ristovski; Ivan Jović’s Kosovo monk story Healing; and Bakur Bakuradze’s Locarno title Brother Dejan, a co-production between Russia and Serbia.

Continental Film, based in Zagreb with a branch in Belgrade and working across the region, has Thousand; while Belgrade’s Art Vista will distribute the up-and-coming Serbian director Luka Bursać’s Afterparty, and Stinking Fairy Tale by Miroslav Momcilović (Death Of A Man In The Balkans).

Zagreb-based Blitz has lined up two potential Croatian hits, Antonio Nuić’s Life Is A Trumpet and Ivan Goran Vitez’s National Hero Ljiljan Vidić. Another Croatian distributor 2I Film has rights for Dalibor Matanić’s Cannes title The High Sun and Igor Šeregi’s 80s football hooligans story ZG 80.

Taramount Film, which also has rights for majors such as Universal and Paramount (for Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia), and Disney (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo), presented another anticipated film, theatre director Jug Radivojević’s Dancing In The Dark which deals with human trafficking.

Speaking to ScreenDaily, Taramount head Danijela Milošević said: “With Avant Premieres, it’s not only that distributors have the opportunity to show their products to the entire market (exhibitors, other distributors, media), but this is the spot where we can get in touch with producers and exchange ideas about current and future projects derived from different points of view.

“It is extremely valuable to show that distribution is significant part of film industry and that the job is not done with the post-production of a certain film.

“Producers need to be in contact with potential distributors from the very beginning. It would be great to have such event every six months (for example, one at Belgrade FEST and another in Sarajevo).”

Industry Terrace

Another useful initiative of Sarajevo’s professionals section is the Industry Terrace, first launched in 2013.

Two years ago it was visited by 15 companies. This year the number jumped to 50 companies including world sales companies Wild Bunch, Coproduction Office, Elle Driver, Films Boutique, Fortissimo, Global Screen, Heretic Outreach, Memento, Protagonist Pictures, Wide Management, and Pyramide.

Distributors and buyers included TV stations B92 (Belgrade), Al Jazeera Balkans, Channel 4, Croatian and Slovenia national broadcasters, independent distributor Kino Mediteran from Split, Croatian documentary distributor Restart.

Other attendees included many of the significant regional festivals; and rental and post-production service providers Digital Cube, Blow Up, Digital Magic Studio, and Studio Chelia.

Representatives of these outlets had 300 one-on-one meetings over two intensive days.

“The idea is to facilitate access to films in all stages of production to smaller companies that do not have the chance to meet the right people in Cannes or Berlin,” said Industry Terrace head Ena Rahelić. “This goes especially for VoD platforms and TV channels.

“While at the EFM or Cannes Marche the focus is always on buzz films from the festival sections, we offer the sales agents a chance to present their catalogues to local and regional cable operators and VoD platforms- something there is never enough time for at the largest festival markets.”

Previous deals struck at the Industry Terrace include Wide Management collaboration with Croatian VoD platform Max TV, which began in Sarajevo in 2013; while in 2014, the Home TV outlet of Bosnian mobile provider HT Eronet started screening films from Continental’s line-up.

On the alternative theatrical distribution front, the Operation Kino label, a joint venture of Transylvania, Sofia and Sarajevo film festivals, which tours with films around Balkan towns without functioning cinemas, struck a deal in Sarajevo in 2014 to screen 400 titles distributed buy Megacom Film. Operation Kino also has its VoD and Cinema on Demand packages.

This initiative also offers an opportunity for networking between producers, distributors and exhibitors.

“Despite all the problems, theatrical exhibition in most of the region shows growth which gives us hope that with quality cinemas, good programing, promotion and overall service we can look forward to brighter future,” said Milošević.

“With that in mind we need to think about promotion not only commercial titles, but also of the ones that need additional support in order to return art house audience to the ranks of regular movie-goers.”