Sarajevo 26

This year’s Competition Programme – Documentary Film selection, made once more by Rada Šešić, comprises 22 films from 305 submissions, of which 13 are feature-length and eight are short documentaries, plus one feature-length film screening Out of Competition. Nine of the films are world premieres, four are international premieres, and eight are regional premieres.

Seven highly promising docs from CEE, scheduled for theatrical release over the next 12 months were presented on Sunday August 16 as part of CineLink Industry Days at Sarajevo FF. The Docu Talent Award went to the Luxembourg–Slovak co–production Ora et Labora (pictured) by Dzhovani Gospodinov, while the DAFilms.com VoD distribution Award went to the Slovak project Retuning directed by Sára Prokopová. Ji.hlava IDFF further revealed the professionals for the Emerging Producers programme 2027, and the Guest Country of Ji.hlava IDFF 2026 as Montenegro.

The documentary binds together people from 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. “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,” the festival writes of the Chilean documentary.

Peter Akar and Rita Balogh’s feature project Kind of Adults, presented in Sarajevo, is described as “a raw, immersive coming-of-age documentary co-created with charismatic Gen Z teens over six turbulent years.” The film won two awards during CineLink; the DOK Leipzig Preview Award, and the East Doc Caravan Award. “We did not set out to explain a generation. We simply stayed with the same group of young people long enough to witness how time quietly transformed them, and us,” comments Akar.

Sarajevo FF’s CineLink Talks will “open a wider conversation about how films gain recognition, how that visibility is sustained and what responsibilities follow once institutions decide to support a work,” organisers write of the five panels, scheduled for August 17 and 19. Leading doc voices include producers Radovan Síbrt, Robert Y. Chang and Ada Solomon, as well as IDFA’s Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen and Ji.hlava IDFF’s Marek Hovorka.

In Maria Cheresheva and Georgi Totev’s HB0 Avanpost-winning project, a disillusioned Jewish peace activist retreats to her home in rural Bulgaria, finding an unlikely lifeline in a long-distance friendship with a Gazan woman fighting to keep her family alive. “Where Shall We Go? is a film born from an urgent need to preserve humanity at a time when war is trying to erase it,” the directors underlined in Sarajevo.

Five near-ready doc projects will be presented August 16 during the CineLink Industry Days of the 32nd Sarajevo FF. Industry Days marks the final staging post in the three-module series that kicked off at Sofia in May 2026. Organised by CineLink and the Balkan Documentary Center, Docu Rough Cut Boutique is a platform dedicated to documentary projects at an advanced phase of the editing process.

Winner of the Docu Talent Award at CineLink Industry Days 2026, Ora et Labora reveals Germany‘s oldest Benedictine monastery at a critical moment of transition, exposing the fragile balance between faith, authority, and existence. “With unprecedented access, I want to invite the viewer into a closed world,” comments director Dzhovani Gospodinov. “Rather than focusing on religion, Ora et Labora becomes an institutional portrait using the monastery as a microcosm to reflect broader questions of masculinity, identity, belonging, and meaning in a rapidly secularizing Europe.”

Seven new major projects from Central and Eastern Europe will be presented August 16 during the 22nd edition of Docu Talents from the East at Sarajevo FF's CineLink Industry Days. All the selected projects are currently in post-production, with premieres expected between September 2026 and August 2027. The most promising projects will be awarded by an international jury and announced during a prize ceremony on August 17. 

This week at CineLink Industry Days the Slovakian project Retuning was handed the DAFilms.com VoD Distribution Award. In the feature documentary, as a new political establishment in Slovakia begins to reshape the public broadcaster, its employees face a turning point that raises questions about the future of public media and their role within it. “Some films are born from fascination and creativity, some from frustration and an urgent need to react,” stresses director Sára Prokopová.