Ordinary People wins Sarajevo

It also won the FIPRESCI award and actor Relja Popovic received the best actor award of the lead role.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, who won the Un Certain Regard award at this year’s Canne, picked up the Special Jury Prize, while the film’s stars Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni shared the Heart of Sarajevo for best actress.

The main competition jury was led by Serbian actress Mirjana Karanovic and included Christian Jeune, director of the Film Department of Cannes; Wieland Speck, director of Berlin’s Panorama Programme; Hungarian director Benedek Fliegauf; and Romanian actress Anamaria Marinca.

Croatian Dalibor Matanic’s Party won the Heart of Sarajevo for the best short film, and two special mentions went to Goran Odvorcic’s Ciao Mama and Balint Kenyeres’ The History Of Aviation. The artistic director of Edinburgh International Film Festival Hannah McGill presided over the jury, which was also included of Igor Stankovic, the head of Serbian distribution company MCF, and Romanian director Marian Crisan.

Meanwhile, Serbian Dragan Nikolic’s Caviar Connection won best documentary award and Romanian Andrei Dascalescu’s Constantin And Elena received a special mention. The Human Rights prize went to Marko Mamuzic’s Heated Blood. Both awards were backed by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Bosnian photographer Zijah Gafic, Swiss film-maker Alice Klara Arnold and Chris McDonald, the executive director of Hot Docs served on the jury.

Sarajevo’s co-production market CineLink also gave out seven awards for new projects. The Excellence Award went to The Exchange by Eran Kolirin, while Javor Gardev’s Zincograph took the Restart Award and The Scab by Srdjan Vuletic received the Goteborg International Film Festival Fund prize. The CNC award was given to Come To My Voice by Huseyin Karabey and the International Relations ARTE award went to Timur Makarevic’s The Key. CineLink’s new award for the best work in progress and $114,00 (€80,000) in kind from Berlin’s post-production company Post Republic was given to Florin Serban’s If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle.

As had previously been announced, Irish film-maker Juanita Wilson won the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation bursary this year. Wilson’s short film The Door, which had previously won the Irish Film & Television Award for best short, was screened at the festival. Although she is Irish, the film was shot in Russian and details the aftermath of Chernobyl.

Actor Stellan Skarsgaard was the curator of the foundation this year.