Sarajevo 2022

Talents Sarajevo, the prestigious programme of the Sarajevo Film Festival founded in collaboration with Berlin International Film Festival and Berlinale Talents, is inviting applications for its 16th edition. This year the programme will be presented under the title Dis/Content. The closing date for applications is May 31.

CineLink Talks, the conference arm of CineLink Industry Days (Sarajevo FF), offers a rich programme of masterclasses, debates and seminars, open for all festival and industry guests. Five panels organized in partnership with Documentary Campus will touch upon distribution challenges, new funding strategies for social impact films, middle players in film industry and the responsibility of documentary filmmakers in fake-news era. For all doc-related panels, read on.

Olha Tsybulska’s debut documentary couldn't be more poignant, comprising a collective portrait of Ukrainians at war. In the film, the director engages in conversation with friends and family, with each interviewee (and the director herself) seeking ways to navigate the new reality of life during wartime. On the eve of Sarajevo 2022 Tsybulska discussed the work with Business Doc Europe.

Young Ukrainian filmmaker Marta Smerechynska, whose new feature doc is selected for Sarajevo Doc Competition, is the daughter of a priest and the sister of a nun. “From early childhood, I was observing nuns. This phenomenon was very interesting and strange for me. I question myself a lot why they were choosing this way [of life],” she tells Business Doc Europe. “As a child, I even had a fear that maybe it is my vocation too.”

A compassionate yet deeply harrowing delve into the important work done by the Croatian empowerment programme ‘I Am Much More Than My Trauma’ which helps women who were raped and traumatised during the Croatian War of Independence. Vedrana Pribacic’s film focusses on a handful of women taking part throughout the programme’s two-year duration.

The five Docu Rough Cut Boutique Awards were handed out August 18, with Gergő Somogyvári’s Fairy Garden (Hungary) picking up two prizes. This year’s jury comprised: Margje de Koning, Movies That Matter; Hanka Kastelicova, HBO Europe; Eugen Kelemen, Avanpost; Catherine Le Clef, Cat&Docs, and Marcel Maiga, DOK Leipzig. Awards in full…

Srđan Keča’s Museum of the Revolution (pictured) wins the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary Film (€4000). Vedrana Pribačić’s Bigger Than Trauma receives the Human Rights Award. Igor Ivanko picks up the Special Jury Award for Fragile Memory. Visar Jusufi’s We,…Composition wins the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Short Documentary Film (€2000).

The Italian-based but Sarajevo-born Srdan Perkic can’t hide his pride that, at this relatively advanced stage of his life, he has finally made a movie. In his 50s, Perkic has belatedly completed his debut feature film, the documentary Lights Of Sarajevo, which is a world premiere in the Sarajevo Festival Documentary Competition this week. The late debutant talks to Business Doc Europe.

A fascinating delve into the lives of traditional Roma families in Romania, The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters also doubles as an enthralling anthropological exercise tracking the impact that ancient customs have on the lives of young Roma couples and their future offspring.

Docu Talent of the East awards were handed out August 16 in Sarajevo to the Ukrainian project Dad’s Lullaby and Romanian Between Revolutions. Ji.hlava IDFF also presented the results of this year’s East West Index – an exclusive survey among key European doc film festivals, which focuses on figures representing individual regions. Furthermore, the Czech doc fest announced the 17 Emerging Producers for 2023, plus the guest country of Qatar.