Sarajevo Film Festival Opens, Serbia Brings 16 Films

The program of the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival opens tonight with a German writer and closes seven days later with a Bosnian war. It opens with “Fatherland” by Pawel Pawlikowski, a biographical film about Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, in which Sandra Hüller and Hans Zischler play Erika and Thomas Mann, and it closes on August 21 with a restored 4K version of Danis Tanovic’s “No Man’s Land” from 2001. The opening ceremony on August 14 is hosted by Bosnian actor Kerim Cutuna.

Between those two screenings lies a week in which the competition programs show 51 films. Serbian cinema is inside with 16 titles, and this year that number says more about how films get made here than about how many there are.

Sixteen Titles, Almost None in the Same Place

No single program carries a Serbian selection. Instead it is scattered across almost the entire festival:

• in the main competition are “Cracks in the Ice” by Maja Milos and the Slovenian-German-Serbian coproduction “Everything That’s Wrong With You,” directed by Ursa Menart
• in the feature documentary competition are “The Mountain” by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazic, this year’s Sundance winner we already wrote about, and “The Forbidden Aunt” by Bojana Novakovic
• in the short documentary program is “Dear Orchid” by Hana Selena Sokolovic, and in the student program the short fiction film “Across the Threshold” by Tara Gajovic
• in the “In Focus” program, which features seven films with earlier festival success, “Promised Spaces” by Ivan Markovic is showing
• in the Open Air program are “Virus of Pathological Kindness” by Predrag Licina, “3 Weeks Later” by Miroslav Misa Terzic, “Koke” by Igor Jelinovic, starring Aleksandra Jankovic in the lead role, “Hidden People” by Miha Hocevar, and the Danish film “Home” by Marijana Jankovic
• in the new program dedicated to Bela Tarr are “Wings and Soil” by Stefan Malesevic and a Serbian-Belgian feature film by Marina Radmilac
• the Human Rights program opens with the Serbian coproduction “All We Have Is Us,” about environmental activists in Serbia and Chile
• screening out of competition is “Yugo Goes to America” by Filip Grujic and Aleksa Borkovic

Most of that list is made up of coproductions, often minority ones, and that is the format through which domestic film most easily reaches a major festival today. The other striking detail is how much of it rests on documentary makers: two of the 13 films in the documentary competition come from here, and “The Forbidden Aunt” is the directorial debut of an actress who built her career in front of the camera, a film about how inherited violence, trauma and addiction shaped four generations of women in her family.

Why Is “Cracks in the Ice” the Biggest Item on That List?

Because it is the only Serbian feature fiction film with a world premiere in Sarajevo’s main competition, on August 18. That lineup holds nine feature fiction films, six of them directed by women, a ratio rarely seen in regional selections.

The main competition is where it is decided which regional film gets the next festival season, a distributor, and a conversation that outlasts opening night. Everything else on the Serbian list plays in programs that bring in an audience but rarely change a film’s trajectory. Maja Milos’s new film is, then, the only entry this year capable of moving something beyond the screening itself.

The documentary competition opens on August 15 with “The Mountain,” part of a lineup of 13 films, which means the festival’s first two days effectively come down to two Serbian entries in two different races.

Honorary Hearts and an Award Chosen by the Audience

This year’s Honorary Heart of Sarajevo goes to Emily Watson, Asghar Farhadi, Diego Luna, Woody Harrelson and Emir Hadzihafizbegovic. Watson is also chairing the jury of the main competition, a Farhadi retrospective runs as part of the “Tribute To” program, Luna is holding a masterclass alongside a screening of his drama “Ashes,” and Harrelson’s honor comes with a screening of “Welcome to Sarajevo” from 1997.

The festival is also handing out the Prix Cineplexx for the first time, an award worth 20,000 euros, of which 15,000 goes into a marketing campaign for the winning film’s theatrical release and 5,000 goes to the producer in cash. The winner is chosen by the audience from the Open Air Premiere program, a rare case of a decision about distribution money leaving the jury room entirely.

Audience interest has already shown up around one Serbian title: “Virus of Pathological Kindness,” Predrag Licina’s satirical sci-fi comedy, has been given an extra screening on August 21, alongside its main one on August 19.

Alongside that, the Summer Screen program brings six new films from Cristian Mungiu, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Marie Kreutzer, Zan Eri and Lee Misijus, essentially a snapshot of what passed through Cannes this spring.

For domestic film, the real test still comes on the evening of August 18. Everything before it is a list, and a list is not what gets remembered.