Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled the programme for its four competition sections at its 30th edition (August 16-23), including five feature world premieres.
Eight films will play in the feature film competition, including the world premiere of Vuk Rsumovic’s Dwelling Among The Gods, about a young Afghan migrant woman who comes to Belgrade and learns her brother drowned in the river, so attempts to bury him under her full name.
Scroll down for the full feature selection
The film is a co-production between Serbia’s BaBoon Production, Croatia’s Kinorama and Italy’s Nightswim.
There is one out of competition title, the world premiere of Mirjana Karanovic’s Mother Mara, about a woman who tries to face the loss of her only son through a relationship with a younger man.
The Documentary Film programme includes 21 titles of which 13 are features. Two of those features are world premieres: Lesia Diak’s Dad’s Lullaby, which won the Docu Talent Award at the 2022 Sarajevo CineLink Industry Days; and Anna Rubi’s Your Life Without Me, about elderly caregivers in Hungary fighting the state on behalf of their disabled children.
The festival received 940 submissions this year, up 0.5% on last year. 190 were fiction features and 280 were documentary features. Fifteen further films will be announced for the In Focus and Open Air programmes in the coming weeks.
“The selection is a polyphony of different and diverse perspectives on war, on history, on love, on betrayal, on fragile future and human everlasting need for belonging,” said Elma Tataragic, programmer of the feature film competition.
The Sarajevo Competition programme is exclusively for films from Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Malta, Moldavia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine.
“These regions are simultaneously in the spotlight and on the margins of global attention, and the Festival provides a unique opportunity for a deeper understanding of all nuances of experience from the geopolitical and artistic margins that are often missing in forming a complex picture of the present day,” said festival director Jovan Marjanovic.
Paul Schrader will preside over the five-person feature film jury; while the three-person documentary film jury consists of Undeniable founder Mandy Chang, Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival founder and director Marek Hovorka, and Chinese filmmaker Wang Xiaoshuai.
The festival will open with the world premiere of Danis Tanovic’s My Late Summer.
Sarajevo 2024 lineup*
Feature competition
Dwelling Among The Gods (Ser-It-Cro) dir. Vuk Rsumovic*
Family Therapy (Slovenia-It-Cro-Nor-Ser) dir. Sonja Prosenc
Arcadia (Gr-Bul) dir. Yorgos Zois
Holy Week (Rom-Switz) dir. Andrei Cohn
The Editorial Office (Ukr-Ger-Slovakia-Czechia) dir. Roman Bondarchuk
The Village Next To Paradise (Austria-Fr-Ger-Som) dir. Mo Harawe
Three Kilometres To The End Of The World (Rom) dir. Emanuel Parvu
Holy Electricity (Geo-Neth) dir. Tato Koteshivili
Mother Mara (Ser-Slovenia-Switz-Mont-Bos&Her) dir. Mirjana Karanovic – out of competition*
Documentary competition
Dad’s Lullaby (Ukr-Rom-Cro) dir. Lesia Diak*
Your Life Without Me (Hun-Swe) dir. Anna Rubi*
Loxy (Gr) dirs. Dimitris Zahos, Thanasis Kafetzis
Our Children (Cro) dir. Silvestar Kolbas
Alice On & Off (Rom) dir. Isabela Tent
A Picture To Remember (Ukr-Fr-Ger) dir. Olga Chernykh
Cent’anni (Slovenia-It-Pol-Ser-Austria) dir. Maja Prelog
Fragments Of Ice (Ukr-Nor) dir. Maria Stoianova
…Ned, Tassot, Yossot (Austria) dir. Brigitte Welch
Pavilion 6 (Cro) dir. Goran Devic
At The Door Of The House Who Will Come Knocking (Ser-Bos&Her-Bel) dir. Maja Novakovic
Praslovan (Slovenia-Cro) dir. Slobodan Maksimovic – out of competition*
Bekim Fehmiu (Alb) dir. Valmir Tertini – out of competition
* - world premiere
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