As the Sarajevo Film Festival heads into its 31st edition later this week, the event is perhaps one of the greatest reminders in the film world of
As the Sarajevo Film Festival heads into its 31st edition later this week, the event is perhaps one of the greatest reminders in the film world of how culture and art can prevail during times of great turmoil and political unrest. Beginning during the Bosnian War in 1995, in the midst of a near four-year siege on Sarajevo, the festival’s manifesto has been to not only position itself as the biggest showcase of Southeast European cinema but to also rejuvenate a city that had been isolated from the rest of the world.
“It’s a complicated world that we live in right now,” says Sarajevo Film Festival director Jovan Marjanović. “On the one hand, one needs to tread carefully but on the other hand you can’t keep doing what you want to do if you’re constantly turning your head around to see what’s coming. We don’t shy away from hard times because our festival actually started in very hard times for this city and the region and it’s important to us to offer up an engaging program that offers enough serious conversation starters. This is what we can do it these times – we can start some conversations and reflect deeper.”
The eight-day festival, which kicks off on August 15, will see 50 films compete for its Heart of Sarajevo awards across its four competition sections – feature, documentary, low and student film. Among those are 16 world premieres, five international, 28 regional and two national premieres. Projects in its feature film competition include Srdan Vuletić’s world premiere of Otter, Hungarian title Stars of Little Importance and Vladimir Tagić’s Yugo Florida.
Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa is set to preside over this year’s jury while Berlinale head Tricia Tuttle, actor Dragan Mićanović, writer-actor-director Emanuel Pârvu and writer-director Ena Sendijarević are all set as jury members. “Sergei is a master of cinema and he’s someone that knows the region well and knows the festival well,” says Marjanović, pointing to the filmmaker’s low film contribution to 2014 anthology film Bridges of Sarajevo.
The festival will open with the world premiere of The Pavilion from Bosnian helmer Dino Mustafic. The black comedy, which is Mustafic’s second feature after his 2003 debut Remake, follows a group of residents in a retirement home who, after years of abuse and humiliation, decide to stage an armed revolt. “It’s got all the big names from our childhood as well as some younger actors,” says Marjanović. “This film is really going to resonate with an aging society.”
The Pavilion is playing as part of the festival’s Open Air Program, which consists of two sections – Open Air, which will “showcase some of the most important arthouse films of the year” in the festival’s iconic Coca-Cola Open Air Cinema, while Open Air Premiere will showcase films from the former Yugoslav regions in the Uniqa Open Air Cinema Stari Grad.
Joachim Trier’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Sentimental Value will screen in Open Air alongside Michel Franco’s Berlin competitor Dreams and Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s Locarno title The Birthday Party. Dominik Moll will be in town to present his Cannes competition title Case 137 while Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar, stars of Nadia Fall’s Sundance competition title Brides, will also be in town to present that title.
Jovan Marjanović
Meanwhile, Bosnian luge documentary The Track, which played to great fanfare at the True/False Festival, Toronto’s Hot Docs and the San Francisco International Film Festival, is returning to its hometown to play at Sarajevo’s Open Air Premiere program. “It’s incredibly meaningful for us to bring this film to Sarajevo – where the story began,” says Marjanović. “The fact that this local story has found its way to international audiences and resonated so strongly speaks to its power and relevance.”
Sarajevo is also not without its usual star power this year with talent such as Paolo Sorrentino, Willem Dafoe, Ray Winstone and Michel Franco all set to receive Honorary Heart of Sarajevo awards as well as participate in masterclasses. Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård will also be in town to collect a Heart of Sarajevo award while controversial DAU artist-director Ilya Khrzhanovskiy is also set to be the subject of a “Tribute To” program, with a curated retrospective of his films.
When queried why no women were being spotlighted for a Heart of Sarajevo award this year, Marjanović put it down to scheduling. “I spoke to many fantastic actresses and directors, and it was just a scheduling thing, and we weren’t able to work it out,” he says. “Overall, in the large scheme of things, when you look at the statistics of our competitions, there is a lot of content by women – it’s almost 50/50 in some sections – which is very important to us as a festival. But for the honorary guests, so many things need to fall into place for it to work out.”
Marjanović notes that this year’s honorees are “people that the festival has had long term connections to,” pointing to Skarsgård who has been to the festival in previous years as a curator and one of the patrons of the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation – whose scholarships were awarded at the festival. The Dune and Sentimental Value star will be in town to relaunch that foundation, says Marjanović. “He’s going to talk about the foundation and open the Talents Program and do a special talk with Simon McBurney,” he says.
Marjanović adds: “The whole world is in turmoil now and you don’t know what is going to happen from one hour to the next, but I think we have to be fearless, fierce and safeguard our independence on the one side. On the other side, I think we need to understand as much as possible that the kind of world we want to live in and try to send these kinds of messages out to the world. The only thing we can do that with is our program.”
The 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival runs August 15-22, 2025.
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