AJB Doc 2022

Matt Sarnecki’s captivating documentary is more than the story of a murder, that of Slovakian investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. It’s also a “blueprint of how corruption works…[how] organised crime has worked hand in hand with law enforcement and other political leaders to corrupt a country,” Sarnecki tells BDE.

In their project selected for Industry Days Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić tell the tale of shepherdess Gara and daughter Nada whose pastural lives of herding and cheesemaking in the highlands of Montenegro are thrown into disarray by the imposition of an international military base. The filmmakers describe their project to Business Doc Europe.

Georgian producer Elene Margvelashvili talks to Business Doc Europe about her new documentary project focusing on a family living on the border between Georgia and the disputed state of Abkhazian who are staking their future on the cultivation and export of blueberries.

Olga Lucovnicova pitches her Last Letters From My Grandma, produced by Frederik Nicolai of Belgian production company Off World, at AJB Doc Industry 2022. “Fascinated by the mysterious life story of my Russian grandmother, who died of suicide in 1989, I travel (from Europe) to Russia to explore the legacy of (private and collective) Soviet history, but come across severe social changes enforced by the new reign of terror,” she explains.

In Petra Seliškar’s new project, Zekir, Zarif and their brothers and sisters have always been shepherds in the beautiful Sar mountain in North Macedonia. But when Zarif, who has just turned 17, begins to dream about a life elsewhere, all sense of family balance is disrupted. “Can we expect the boys to maintain that very demanding life while they have Instagram in their pocket?” asks producer Sara Ferro.

Ukrainian producer Ivanna Khitsinska talks to Business Doc Europe about director Yuliia Hontaruk’s project which was pitched both at AJB Doc and Toronto; a documentary about war, trauma and self-sacrifice as three young Ukrainian veterans return home from battle on the frontline, only to be thrown back into the turmoil after the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

Aida Begić, Dana Budisavljević, Fatma Riahi, Phil Grabsky and Ensar Altay will all serve on the international jury of the fifth edition of AJB DOC Film Festival, which will be held in Sarajevo from September 9 to 13. The five-member jury will select the best film of the AJB DOC Festival Competition Programme and award the AJB DOC Main Award.

Urban legend or shocking revelation? A controversial unnamed source provides the spine for Miran Zupanič’s chilling and often shocking documentary which tells the story of how rich foreigners allegedly paid top dollar to join Bosnian Serb Army snipers to shoot at residents of a Sarajevo under siege during the 1992-96 war.

Industry Days is a new platform created in co-operation with the Al Jazeera Documentary channel with a goal “to support the development of production of documentary films from across the world, including international and regional productions.” The program will take place from September 10 - 12 during the 5th edition of AJB Doc, and offers up 30 new projects within three pitch categories. Co-production awards worth $60,000+ are up for grabs.

Stylistically dreamlike, emotionally intimate, Srđan Keča’s debut feature, which screens in the AJB Doc Last Minute Cinema section, leads us into the homeless lives of a young girl, her mother and an ersatz grandmother, living in the basement of the never completed Museum of the Revolution in Belgrade.