Sarajevo 26

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.

Dublin-based former Yugoslavian filmmaker Dragana Jurišić talks to Business Doc Europe about her debut documentary, a film both joyous and heart-rending, which tells the stories of maverick filmmaker Hari Džekson, a director of westerns, and his home town of Bijeljina, where the war in Bosnia started in 1992. In the feature doc, Jurišić also sets out to create her own western in the style of Hari. “When we were filming, everyone came together - Serbs, Roma, Muslims, Croats. It was such a joyful happy atmosphere, and there was absolutely no reason why these people shouldn't be friends - except for these man-made identity structures that are imposed on them.”

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. 

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.

In a village on the edge of an expanding coal mine in southwest Turkey, five women – olive farmers and housewives – transform from neighbours into activists in order to protect their forest, the last natural barrier between the mine and their community. "I hope [the film] leaves audiences with the feeling that meaningful change often begins by transforming people long before it transforms the world,” says director Selen Çatalyürekli. The project won the Movies That Matter Award in Sarajevo.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In her new feature doc, world-premiering at Sarajevo FF, Dutch-based Croatian director Tatjana Bozic discusses the business of loneliness, and being a stranger in a strange land. “It explores the loss of roots, community, and identity through the lens of migration and motherhood. As I discovered while making the film, the feeling of not belonging often begins long before we cross borders, it starts within our own families.”