Damir Markovina, director of Wait For Me
The international three-member jury consisting of award-winning film producer Jamel Dallali; writer, director and editor Una Gunjak, and artistic director of DokuFest Veton Nurkollari handed the AJB DOC Main Competition Award September 14 to Croatian filmmaker Damir Markovina for Wait For Me.
In its citation, the jury noted its “delicate, touching, mature yet humorous contemplation of character, family relations and ageing, and its ability to transcend all racial and ethnic barriers.”
Special Mention was given to Brotherhood by Francesco Montagner “for its ability to offer a fascinating look at the growing up in a seemingly pastoral environment, as well as for the examination of patriarchy and while maintaining a delicate balance.”
Indian duo Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Gosh won the Al Jazeera Balkans Programme Department Jury Award for their film Writing With Fire, which delivers an extraordinary story about Dalit women journalists who managed to rise above class and caste divisions in the harshest of social circumstances.
“Equipped only with smartphones and courage, fearless reporters of the Indian newspaper Khabar Lahariya investigate the incompetence of the police, listen to and stand by the victims of caste and gender violence, and confront injustice and political intimidation. While tackling a local Indian theme, the film sends a universal message and has the power to inspire the entire journalistic community and encourage each of us to try to make the world a better and more just place,” said the Al Jazeera Programme Department Jury in explaining their decision.
The Audience Award will be presented later in the week, once the votes for all films screened at this year’s AJB DOC have been counted.
A special ‘’honour was given to Scenes From The Life of BiH Film by Mustafa Mustafić, which “above all, aims to revisit the memory of authors who are no longer with us, their work and films that have left an indelible mark on the development of BiH film. In this film, Mustafić reminds us how one of the most successful film industries in this part of the world was created.”
The festival was held 10-14 September in Sarajevo and online, and featured 23 high quality documentaries which were screened across four sections – Competition Program, AJB Screening, Last Minute Cinema and Smart Doc.
The director of the AJB DOC Film Festival, Edhem Fočo, expressed his gratitude to festival audiences. “We are grateful and we are very glad that we managed to bring the audience back to the cinema. The authors were also more than happy with their re-interaction with the audience, and all the guests of the Festival had positive reactions,” he said.
Fočo extended special thanks to the managers of Al Jazeera Documentary for their support. “We are very glad to be entering a new phase of development of both the Festival and the documentary film. The positive reactions of the audience and the AJD Industry @ AJB DOC platform, which we are launching next year, are a sign that we are moving towards a better future,” he said Fočo, expressing his happiness that AJB DOC has become “a symbol of documentary film in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region.”
In addition to screenings, a training in Smart phone documentary film production was held under the guidance of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Damir Šagolj, presented in co-operation with the Al Jazeera Media Institute.
Al Jazeera’s Gaza reporter fom Gaza, Safwat al-Kahlout, held a lecture for journalists on the topic: Gaza: Past, Present and Future.
