Organisers of the 5th AJB Doc Film Festival, running 9-13 September, have unveiled the full 2022 programme, comprising four themed sections and an International Competition.
“It is exactly peace and faith in a better tomorrow that connect all participants of documentary films that will be shown at the Fifth AJB DOC Film Festival, which brought about the theme of this year’s edition – the white dove, a universal symbol of peace, whose take-off and upward movement presented in the form of an artwork is placed so that it symbolically forms number five with its body and movement,” say organisers.
“Aware that design and a documentary film festival cannot change or fix the world we live in, we can still try to send a message of peace and wish peace far all.”
AJB DOC selectors Lejla Dedić, Đani Hasečić and Sead Kreševljaković have selected 25 films from almost 300 submissions that will be presented across four program selections – Competition Program, AJB Screening, Last Minute Cinema and SMART Doc, alongside two special screenings.
Comments director of the AJB DOC Film Festival Edhem Fočo: “We are glad that our film screenings have always been well attended, because the authors recognize that. Most of the authors whose films are shown are actually present at our festival, and the interesting Q&A (conversation between the audience and the authors) often lasts longer than the film itself. I think that this year we have a great selection and I hope that the audience will again recognize that.”
“AJB DOC is already becoming a tradition in these September days,” adds Tarik Đođić, director of Al Jazeera Balkans, “In the five days of the fifth edition of the festival, we will show [25] documentary films and stay true to what we tried from the beginning, and that is to put film and authors first.”
The decision on Best Film of the AJB DOC Competition Programme will be made by an international jury consisting of film director Aida Begić, director and producer Dana Budisavljević, documentary filmmaker and producer Fatma Riahi, British documentary filmmaker Phil Grabsky and documentary filmmaker Ensar Altay.
All films in the Competition Programme will compete for the AJB Program Award of the Al Jazeera Balkans program jury. Furthermore, all films shown at the AJB DOC Film Festival enter the competition for the Audience Award.
- A House Made of Splinters by Simon Lereng Wilmont
- A Parked Life by Peter Triest
- All that Remains to be Seen by Julie Bezerra Madsen
- Behind the Swedish Model by Viktor Nordenskiöld
- Children of the Enemy by Matt Sarnecki and Gorki Glaser-Müller
- Children of the Mist by Diem Ha Le
- Fragments of Humanity by Elli Rintala
- Girl Gang by Susanne Regina Meures
- Nadia by Anissa Bonnefont and Edith Chapin
- No Place Like Home by Emilie Beck
- The Hungarian Playbook by Bence Máté
- This Stolen Country of Mine by Marc Wiese
- Dida by Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić
- Love, Deutschmarks and Death by Cem Kaya
- Museum of the Revolution by Vanja Jambrović, Srđan Keča
- The Killing of a Journalist by Matt Sarnecki
- Sarajevo Safari by Miran Zupanič
- Melting Dreams by Haidy Kancler
- Celebrity Untold: Miroslav Ćiro Blažević by Irena Škorić
- The Colorless by Aida Gavrić
- We are Guilty Too by Elma Iković
- Life with Purpose by Ammina Bašović
- A Haunted Past by Fatma Riahi
- For Sarajevo – The Last French Intellectuals’ Cause by Zehra Sikias
INDUSTRY DAYS
Core to this year’s edition of AJB DOC is the inaugural Industry Days platform, created in association with the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, which is aimed at supporting the development of documentary film production around the world, including international and regional co-productions. Twenty-seven projects at different stages of production will be presented across three separate pitching categories.
“Directors and producers from the region, Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the MENA region will have an opportunity to present their documentary projects and get financing, distributors, film festivals and broadcasters, as well as to get contacts with other film festivals and film foundations that will be attending the festival,” comments selector Lejla Dedić. “We are very proud of the new platform, and we hope it will be successful.”
Projects will compete for a range of awards, including a Main Pitch award of $25,000 and a Work-in-Progress pitch prize of $15,000.
Along with screenings of AJB DOC films, a masterclass by Galeb Nikačević, journalist and creator of the popular Agelast podcast, will be held under the auspices of the Info Center of the European Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In addition, a three-day training session “Production of Documentary Films with a Smartphone” will be held in cooperation with the Al Jazeera Media Institute and Samsung. “We invited twenty participants from the entire region covered by Al Jazeera Balkans to teach them how to produce and make documentaries with a smartphone, as well as how to find the right stories”, says producer Nejra Kozarić.
