Diary of a Bride of Christ by Marta Smerechynska
The 28th Sarajevo Film Festival opens August 12 with a packed documentary programme that includes 22 films in Documentary Competition, and numerous doc projects across the CineLink strands.
Sarajevo’s doc programmer Rada Šešić outlines the 2022 festival offer: “Our program celebrates the richness of documentary forms: from the exciting cinéma-vérité styles where the camera is a ‘fly on the wall,’ to the poetic, intimate diary documentaries and complex narratives that celebrate the creative use of archival footage,” she explains. “We also have an experimental film that explores new manners of using cinematic language and films that efficiently and with great imagination combine animation with documentary textures.”
“Seeing some new authors and talents enter the documentary world scene is wonderful,” she continues. “Our program puts quite a large number of debutants under the limelight, and what I also proudly emphasize is a big presence of female directors and producers. We have three compelling films from Ukraine, the country struggling to survive, where people are dying every day, suffering, and despite all that, trying to create something valuable and share it with the world. Part[s] of these films [were] in the process before the war and only finished now, but one of them was made very recently, during the months of the war.”
“We also have new authors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, director Farah Hasanbegović and producer Amra Hadžihafizbegović Deović, who are just entering the professional scene. Their commitment to the documentary is already evident,” Šešić adds.
The films will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary Film (€4000), Heart of Sarajevo for Best Short Documentary Film Award (€2000) the Human Rights Award (€3000) and the Special Jury Prize (€2500).
Documentary Competition selection:
- Diary of a Bride of Christ by Marta Smerechynska (Ukraine, 2022, 90 min) World premiere
- Lights of Sarajevo by Srđan Perkić (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2022, 68 min) World premiere
- Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk (Ukraine, USA, 2022, 12 min) World premiere
- Paying a Visit to Fortuna by Mátyás Kálmán (Hungary, Croatia, 2022, 74 min) World premiere
- Shadowed by the Plane Tree by Aynur Elgunesh (Azerbaijan, 2022, 18 min) World premiere
- The Chalice. Of Sons and Daughters by Cătălina Tesăr, Dana Bunescu (Romania, 2022, 83 min) World premiere
- The Film Factory by Silvestar Kolbas (Croatia, 2022, 15 min) World premiere
- Too Close by Botond Püsök (Romania/Hungary, 2022, 85 min) World premiere
- Babajanja by Ante Zlatko Stolica (Croatia, 2022, 14 min) International premiere
- Retreat by Anabela Angelovska (North Macedonia/Germany, 2022, 30 min) International premiere
- We,…Composition by Visar Jusufi (Kosovo/Germany, 2022, 15 min) International premiere
- Bigger Than Trauma by Vedrana Pribačić (Croatia, 2022, 91 min) European premiere
- Another Spring by Mladen Kovačević (Serbia, France, Qatar, 2022, 90 min) Regional premiere
- A Provincial Hospital by Ilian Metev, Ivan Chertov, Zlatina Teneva (Bulgaria/Germany, 2022, 107 min) Regional premiere
- Atonal Glow by Alexander Koridze (Georgia, 2022, 67 min) Regional premiere
- Beauty of the Beast by Anna Eszter Nemes (Hungary/Serbia, 2022, 47 min) Regional premiere
- Fragile Memory by Igor Ivanko (Ukraine, 2022, 85 min) Regional premiere
- Living Together by Thomas Fürhapter (Austria, 2022, 90 min) Regional premiere
- Microbiome by Stavros Petropoulos (Greece, 2021, 27 min) Regional premiere
- No Place for You in Our Town by Nikolay Stefanov (Bulgaria, 2022, 81 min) Regional premiere
- Ribs by Farah Hasanbegović (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Hungary/Belgium/Portugal, 2022, 9 min) Regional premiere
- Museum of the Revolution by Srđan Keča (Serbia/Croatia/Czech Republic, 2021, 91 min) B&H premiere
Rada Šešić also oversees the CineLink Docu Rough Cut Boutique programme, a regional platform dedicated to documentary projects in the advanced phase of the editing process. The programme is organized by Sarajevo Film Festival and Balkan Documentary Center. Click here for jury and prizes.
Docu Rough Cut Boutique Selection:
- Fairy Garden by Gergő Somogyvári (Hungary, 80 mins) Fanni, the rejected transgender amazon finds shelter at LACI’s do-it-yourself hut. The solitary homeless man becomes her father, and they go on fighting Fanni’s demons and the rejection of the outside world together.
- Fragments of Ice by Maria Stoianova (Ukraine, 80 mins) Through her father’s VHS archive from the 80s and 90s, the director tells the story of Ukrainian society’s growing up: between the illusion of “Western paradise” and the troubles of the USSR.
- My Muslim Husband by Daniel Barnuti and Alexandra Lizeta Barnuti (Romania, 90 mins) Liz gets married to Daniel, a Romanian man converted Muslim. The two lovers come to understand that to find happiness, they will have to rise above the prejudices of everyone around them, including their own.
- Requiem to the Hot Days of Summer by Giorgi Parkosadze (Georgia, Greece, 75 mins) Mother and son – a sensuous portrayal of an innate unbreakable bond, defined by the invisible burden of care, silence and solitude in an isolated mountainous gorge in Georgia.
- Snajka by Tea Vidović Dalipi (Croatia, Italy, Kosovo, 90 mins) Co-existence on the front of family expectations!
- The Soldier by Aleksandar Nikolić (Serbia, Germany, United Kingdom, 90 mins)
- Made entirely out of archive collected from many different conflicts, this anti-war film follows an archetypal soldier on his journey from a young recruit to a disillusioned veteran.
As previously reported, Ukrainian Alisa Kovalenko’s Expedition 49 and Israeli Renen Schorr’s Rabbi Heller Blues will join ten fiction projects in the 2022 CineLink Work in Progress selection.
Produced by Stéphane Siohan for East Roads Film, the Ukraine/France/Poland Expedition 49 follows Valentyn, Ukraine’s greatest alpinist and adventurer who, for his final adventure, finds five young teenagers living on the Donbas frontline and takes them on an expedition to the Himalayas.
In Rabbi Heller Blues, directed and produced by Renen Schorr for Blues Production (Israel), the director tells the story of his maternal grandfather’s life.
“This year’s CineLink Work in Progress selection presents a variety of films with subject and genres shifting from coming of age to historical and current issues,” comments Amra Bakšić Čamo, Head of CineLink. “The selection contains projects developed through CineLink workshops, and some new discovered to us, brought us a lot of pleasure. This year’s selection presents upcoming artists as well as experienced ones known to audiences and we are very happy and proud that they will be with us in Sarajevo.”
The 12 CineLink Work in Progress projects (2 documentaries and 10 fiction) will compete for two awards: the Post Republic Award (€40,000 in kind), and the Turkish National Radio Television Award (€25,000 in cash). The jury deciding on the awards comprises: Vanja Kaluđerčić (IFFR), Marcin Łuczaj (New Europe Film Sales), Esra Demirkiran (Turkish National Radio Television), Dennis Ruh (European Film Market) and Deniz Erel (The Post Republic).
As previously reported, on August 15 the 9 new Docu Talents from the East documentary projects will be presented at Hotel Europe 14.30-15.45.
The most promising project will receive the Docu Talent Award, offered in co-operation with Current Time TV. The award is accompanied by a prize valued at $5,000. The in-kind DAFilms Distribution Award 2022 (€3000) will be awarded to one of the projects and will cover its release on DAFilms (including Americas, Europe, Asia) for two years.
In CineTalks, the conference component of CineLink Industry Days, Sergei Loznitsa and Michael Winterbottom, both of whom straddle doc and fiction in their work will give live masterclasses in Sarajevo, on August 14 and 19 respectively. The festival will also programme a retrospective of Loznitsa’s work.
