AJB DOC 23

The $25,000 Main Pitch Al Jazeera Documentary Channel prize was awarded to The Rabbis Intifada by Heather “Chana” Tenzer. Al Jazeera Documentary Channel awarded its Work-in-Progress prize to Abd al-Kader Habak for Until The Buzzing Stops, and its Balkan Stars award to I Don't Want To by Hanis Bagashov. The second edition of Al Jazeera Documentary Industry days @ AJB DOC ran September 9-11 in Sarajevo. All awards…

Intrepid 52-year-old Bosnian athlete and filmmaker Tomislav Cvitanušić, a basketball star in Sarajevo as a youngster, recently made climbing Everest, the world’s highest mountain, his goal. His ascent is chronicled in new documentary, The Deepest Summit, screening this weekend at AJB Doc. Was there an ulterior motive? “To steal some of the media space from the everyday politics that is always quite pessimistic in the Balkans,” he tells BDE.

The AJB DOC Main Award went to When Spring Came to Bucha by Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz. The Al Jazeera Balkans Program Jury Award was presented to Nick Read and Ayse Toprak for My Name is Happy. Special Recognition Awards went to Pure Unknown, by Valentina Cicogna and Mattia Colombo, and Flotation, directed by Alesandra Tatić and Eluned Zoe Aiano.

Does the subject or ‘star’ of a documentary really know what they are signing up for before agreeing to have their story told? Will the experience be cathartic or will ongoing public exposure determine that the trauma they have hitherto suffered will continue, or even intensify. Jennifer Tiexiera and Camilla Hall’s new film, five years in the making, talks to the subjects of some the most celebrated documentaries of recent years who reflect on their experiences of being in front of the camera.

Business Doc Europe caught up with Tamara Babun, producer at Zagreb-based outfit Wolfgang&Dolly LLC. Babun is producing Another Film About the War, Father and Home by Damir Markovina, one of the documentary projects being presented in the Balkan Stars section of this year’s AJB DOC Industry, unspooling in Sarajevo until September 11.

‘A person who dies without a name is like a story without an ending,’ reads the logline for Pure Unknown, screening in AJB DOC Competition. The objective of Italian forensic pathologist Cristina Cattaneo, profiled in the film, is to make sure as many stories as possible do find an ending. “I completely fell in love with…her mission and her ethical approach to her work, to her life and to the lives of others,” co-director Mattia Colombo tells BDE.

The theme “points out the increasingly frequent denial of fundamental rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to, regardless of their origin, beliefs and way of life,” write festival organisers. The sixth Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC) will be held from September 8 to 12 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Business Doc Europe spoke to Ali Ben Mohamed, producer at UK-based outfit BM Entertainment Ltd. who is producing Finding the Way Home, one of the documentary projects being presented in the Main Pitch section of this year’s AJB DOC Industry, running in Sarajevo until 11 September. In the film, a Somali journalist walks back down 'the road of death' in search of his memories, and visits his hometown for the first time in 15 years.

The international jury for the 6th Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC, 8-12 Sept) comprises director Vitaliy Manskiy, director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter, producer Vanja Jambrović, director Nermin Hamzagić, and producer Mohamed Elmongy. The five-member jury will decide on the best film from the AJB DOC Film Festival competition programme and grant the AJB DOC Main Award.

Filmmaker Irina Maldea tells a timely story in her documentary project, selected for AJB DOC Industry. The ‘New Thinking’ of Mikhail Gorbachev was dismissed as Utopian fantasy, the director stresses, but nevertheless a chance for long-term peace was lost forever in the pursuit of short-term gain, and the war currently raging in Ukraine is, arguably, a direct consequence of the short-sightedness of over 30 years ago.