Each year for its Human Rights Day programme, Sarajevo FF selects a particularly impactful film that inspires reflection and post-screening dialogue by the filmmakers, its protagonists, and experts on the subject under examination.
This year’s selection is the 79-minute Chilean feature documentary All We Have Is Us, co-directed by Alina Juárez and Juan Francisco Donoso and world-premiering at Sarajevo. The film binds together people in two distant territories – the Atacama Desert in Chile and the Jadar Valley in Serbia – through their shared struggle for the right to decide the future of the place they call home. Both regions are threatened by lithium mining projects led by Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company.
Over five years, Juárez and Donoso follow people at the heart of the struggle: Chilean journalist and activist Leyla Noriega; Ramón Balcázar, a photographer and socio-environmental researcher documenting the economic impact of lithium mining in the Atacama; Serbian actor Bojana Novaković; and Vladan Jakovljević, a beekeeper from the Jadar Valley.
“Their personal stories intertwine to present the picture of a global process in which energy transition, economic development, and environmental protection directly impact the rights of local communities,” festival organisers note. “The people in this film are not passive victims; rather, they are active participants who resist through civil initiatives, local media discourse, international solidarity, and art.”
Through protests, high-stakes public events, and intimate everyday moments, we witness the raw personal stakes of environmental struggle. As their paths cross, these women weave a transcontinental network of solidarity with local farmers, activists, and artists.
Organisers further note how, as well as being a film about resistance, All We Have Is Us is a reminder that filmmaking itself can be “an act of resistance.” Juárez and Donoso create space for voices that are not often heard in global debates about progress and green transition. Through the intimate stories of its protagonists, the film asks a universal question: Who has the right to decide about the future of the places we call home?
“Because of its powerful execution and a tactical pairing of environmental and civil resistance perspectives, we believe that All We Have Is Us will be among the documentary films that distinguish the festival edition ahead of us,” organisers sign off.
