The fourth Al Jazeera Balkans International Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC) opened September 10 in Sarajevo with a screening of Catherine Harte’s Faith and Branko. The festival, comprising 21 documentaries across 4 sections, including the new Smart Doc program which presents docs filmed on mobiles, runs to September 14.
Ahmed Mahfouz, the director of Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, officially opened the event. “We are facing challenges from all sides – both those caused by the pandemic and others that are happening around the world – from political unrests to riots, terrorism, disease, polarization, etc. The film industry has carried the burden of those challenges. But it is what gave films new energy. I think this is just the beginning of a new renaissance of films in general, and documentaries in particular,” he said.
“During the festival, we will make a great announcement about the launch of industry which will, I hope, be a milestone for the documentary filmmaking in the region,” he added.
Tarik Đođić, the director of Al Jazeera Balkans, said he was glad to see that the AJB DOC Festival was becoming a tradition associated with the month of September. “We have faced many challenges, especially in the pandemic. But we have used them as an opportunity to make the festival more accessible to people by allowing them to watch the films online, with one click and for free. I hope the fourth edition will bring us new success. We are preparing more beautiful surprises in the years to come,” he said.
Last year’s edition of AJB DOC was held completely online due to the pandemic. All films were available online on the ajb.doc platform which recorded over 120.000 viewers.
The 2021 opening ceremony was followed by the screening of the film Faith and Branko, an intimate documentary that follows a seven-year relationship between two musicians of different cultures. This was followed by a Q&A session with the British accordionist Faith Elliot and the Roma violinist Branko Ristić, the main protagonists of the film, who performed some of their music which made them popular around the world.
The second film which was screened on the opening night of the Festival was Radio Silence by Juliana Fanjul. The film opened the out-of-competition Last Minute Cinema selection. Radio Silence is also available for online viewing.
In the coming days, the audience of the AJB DOC Film Festival will have the opportunity to watch 23 high quality documentaries. A new addition to this year’s edition of AJB DOC is the Smart Doc selection, which will present documentaries filmed with smart phones. All films in this selection were made by authors who participated in the last year’s training which was held as a part of the third AJB DOC.
In addition to screenings, a smart phone documentary production training programme will be held under the guidance of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Damir Šagolj from 11-13 September. The training is organized in cooperation with the Al Jazeera Media Institute.
Furthermore, Al Jazeera’s reporter from Gaza, Safwat al-Kahlout, will hold a lecture for journalists on the topic Gaza: Past, Present and Future. The lecture will be held on Sunday 12 September at 16:00 at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Sarajevo.
AJB DOC Film Festival will present three awards. An international jury consisting of award-winning film producer Jamel Dallali; writer, director and editor Una Gunjak, and artistic director of DokuFest Veton Nurkollari will decide on the best film from the Competition Programme, which will receive the AJB DOC Main Award.
All films from the Competition Programme also compete for the AJB Program Award, awarded by the Al Jazeera Balkans Programme Department Jury. All films screened at the AJB DOC festival will compete for the Audience Award.
