Sarajevo first introduced fiction Panorama in 1999, and Panorama Documentaries in 2001, and now, following the suggestion by festival director Miro Purivatra, they have been combined into one umbrella Panorama.

“This makes perfect sense: The distinction between fiction and documentary is more and more blurred,” says programmer Howard Feinstein. “But whether one pigeonholes a film as a fiction or as a documentary, each one tells a story. The methods may vary, but a narrative propels the film.”

Feature films include Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Chuan Lu’s San Sebastian winner City Of Life And Death, Alexei Popogrebsky’s Berlin prizewinner How I Ended This Summer, Venice winner Lebanon, Brillante Mendoza’s much-lauded Lola, David Robert Mitchell’s Myth Of The American Sleepover which won ensemble award at SXSW in Austin for its cast, Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Rotterdam favourite Symbol, and critically acclaimed The Temptation Of St. Tony by Estonia’s Veiko Ounpuu.

The documentary line-up includes IDFA prizewinners Colony by Carter Gunn and Ross McDonnel and Last Train Home by Lixin Fan; The Oath by Laura Poitras, awarded for best cinematography in Sundance’s doc competition; Jia Zhang-Ke’s latest I Wish I Knew, Guo Xiaolu’s Once Upon A Time Proleterian about Chinese society, and Eyal Sivan’s Jaffa: The Orange’s Clockwork about Palestinian refugee camps.

The Sarajevo Film Festival runs July 23 to 31.

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