AJB Doc 2022

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.

Srđan Šarenac’s Cinema Under Siege wins the top prize (valued at €25,000) of the first Al Jazeera Documentary Industry Days in Sarajevo. Work in Progress Award to Atieh Zare for Friday at the Window. AJD Industry Days ran September 10-12, during which eriod 32 projects from Southeast Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were presented. All awards…

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.

In Emilie Beck’s debut feature doc, selected for AJB Doc, a young woman, Priyangika, who was adopted at a young age, embarks on an existential odyssey to her birth country of Sri Lanka to discover her own story. “I knew that whatever she [Priyangika] finds during the journey, I wanted to follow her emotions, her existential travel..[but] the further we went, the bigger the story got,” director Beck told BDE before the film’s world premiere at CPH:DOX.

During the closing ceremony of the 5th AJB DOC Film Festival Gorki Glaser-Müller’s Children of the Enemy was awarded Best Film, while Special recognition was given to All that Remains To Be Seen by Julie Bezerra Madsen. The Al Jazeera Balkans Program Jury Award went to Peter Triest for A Parked Life with Marc Wiese’s This Stolen Country of Mine gaining a Special Mention.

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.

Comprising four themed sections including an International Competition, as well as a comprehensive (and inaugural) Industry Days programme, the Sarajevo-based fest will run 9-13 September. “Aware of the fact that peace as the highest ideal is eluding mankind again, we found inspiration and faith in a better tomorrow in authentic and touching human stories that return the focus to the ordinary man, providing us with an insight into his fear, hope, regret – and cry for peace,” write organisers.

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.