Sarajevo Film Festival extends its CineLink Talks.
by Vassilis Economou / selected by Cineuropa.

10/08/2017 - Expanding its TV Drama section, the leading Balkan festival is also due to focus on regional funding, virtual reality, marketing and the preservation of history
Sarajevo Film Festival will be expanding even more during its CineLink Industry Days with the well-recognised CineLink Talks section. The focuses of the programme’s dedicated seminars, masterclasses and panel discussions are TV dramas, Virtual Reality, film funding, marketing and investigating the past. The programme is due to take place from 12 to 16 August at Hotel Europe.
After its initial launch last year, CineLink Drama has become one of the leading subjects in the Talk sessions. In partnership with MIDPOINT, which is also holding its final and third MIDPOINT TV LAUNCH workshop in Sarajevo, the Talks session will focus on all the necessary elements of script development, pitching and financing. HBO will also be presenting its new series as well as local station RTS.
In the Regional Forum, which is the most specialised funding section, film funds from South-East Europe as well as key players, such as some major German funds, will provide an in-depth exploration of the future of co-production and collaboration in the cinema industry.
Last year Sarajevo started a VR initiative that is due to expand this year with Virtual Reality Days, a series of workshops with VR experts due to explore the creation of cinematic VR content, the role of VR in storytelling kits as well as Augmented Reality. All sessions are due to take place at the Networks creative space.
The Avant Premiere Lab, running over two days, from 13 to 14 August, will focus on the newest forms of exhibition, distribution and film marketing in collaboration with Europa Cinemas, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and local players such as Kinodvor. Mestni Kino., CineArte and Pari Pikule.
The Dealing with the Past section (13 to 14 August) will shed some light on topics relating to war in former Yugoslavia, also paying tribute to Joshua Oppenheimer. In parallel, the second edition of True Stories Market will present nine cases that have not been yet presented in films or on TV, with the aim of researching the subject of war in the 1990s.
Jovan Marjanović, Head of Industry at Sarajevo Film Festival, stated: “CineLink Talks provides a stage for us to present a rich and diverse programme for everyone, from the young filmmaker to the experienced professional, on topics ranging from creative development to public policy. Our aim is to offer inspiration to the regional and wider industry, as well as providing training, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing.”

Audiences' delight in Sarajevo's Kinoscope and In Focus programmes
In an emerging territory of more than 140 million inhabitants, Sarajevo Film Festival serves as the number one platform for film businesses from all over the region, setting the future standards in festival organization, film promotion and industry networking for co-production with South-East Europe.
by Vladan Petkovic
11/08/2017 - Non-competitive sections of Sarajevo Film Festival offer an unmissable selection of European and regional arthouse favourites.
The Sarajevo Film Festival (11-18 August) will, in addition to its feature (news), documentary (news), shorts, and the newly established student film (news) competitions, traditionally serve its audiences exquisite selections of award-winning and critically acclaimed films from the region and around the world from the last year. The In Focus programme is dedicated to films from the region that scored success at A-list festivals, and it includes titles such as Ildikó Enyedi's Golden Bear winner On Body and Soul [+], Berlinale Panorama Special titles When the Day Had No Name [+] by Teona Strugar Mitevska and Requiem for Mrs J. [+] by Bojan Vuletić, as well as Sundance entry My Happy Family [+] by Nana Ektvimishvili and Simon Gross (who already own a Heart of Sarajevo for In Bloom [+]). Rounding up the section are festival favourite Quit Staring at My Plate [+] by Hana Jušić (which world-premiered at Venice Days last year), and Kornél Mundruczó's Cannes competition entry Jupiter's Moon.
More Cannes title are present in the Kinoscope programme, including laureates such as Ruben Östlund's Palme d'Or-winner The Square [+], Andrei Zvyagintsev's Loveless [+], Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa's Gabriel and the Mountain [+], and Leonor Serraille's Montparnasse Bienvenüe [+], as well as the critically acclaimed Western [+] by Valeska Grisebach and Happy End [+] by Michael Haneke. From Berlinale, there's Summer 1993 [+] which garnered Carla Simón the Best First Feature Award and Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury, while genre afficionados will be happy for a chance to see Bertand Bonello's Nocturama [+], Alice Lowe's Prevenge [+], and Julia Ducournau's Raw [+].
And the most popular venue, the 3,000-seat Open Air, will open the festival with another Berlinale title, Aki Kaurismaki's The Other Side of Hope [+], and will later in the week be the site for films such as Fatih Akin's In the Fade [+], the Safdie Brothers' Good Time, as well as works of winners of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo: Michel Franco and April's Daughter, and John Cleese and A Fish Called Wanda.

CineLink announces Work in Progress titles
by Vladan Petkovic
27/07/2017 - The selection includes new projects by Dragomir Sholev, Tinatin Kajrishvili, Bobo Jelčić, Paul Negoescu and Milko Lazarov
The Sarajevo Film Festival's CineLink Co-Production Market has announced its Work in Progress selection. Ten promising projects (eight fictions and two documentaries) will be presented at closed screenings to about 40 specially invited industry decision-makers, comprising funders, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters and festival programmers.
The list includes two projects by acclaimed Bulgarian filmmakers, Pig by Dragomir Sholev (Shelter [+]) and Nanook by Milko Lazarov (Alienation [+]), as well as new films by former Sarajevo competitors and winners, such as Horizon by Georgia's Tinatin Kajrishvili (Brides [+]), All Alone by Croatia's Bobo Jelčić (A Stranger [+]) and Never Let It Go by Romania's Paul Negoescu (Two Lottery Tickets [+], A Month in Thailand).
Three debut feature projects are coming all the way from the Middle East: Fig Tree by Alamork Davidian and The Day After I'm Gone by Nimrod Elsar (both from Israel), plus the Lebanese-Egyptian documentary What Comes Around by Reem Saleh.
Two more debut features, Mo' by Romania's Radu Dragomir and the documentary Honeyland by Macedonia's Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska, round off the selection.
The selected projects will be judged by a jury consisting of Paolo Bertolin (Venice Film Festival), Paz Lazaro (Berlin International Film Festival), Hedi Zardi (LuxBox), Petra Gobel (The Post Republic) and Serkan Yildirim (TRT), and will be vying for three awards: The Post Republic Award, worth €50,000 (in kind); the CineLink Restart Award, worth €20,000 (in kind); and the Turkish National Radio Television Award, worth €30,000 (in cash).
"The CineLink Work in Progress strand has proven to be incredibly effective for both the filmmakers presenting their works and the attending industry delegates," says Sarajevo's head of industry, Jovan Marjanović. "We are certain that this year’s projects are the films we will be watching on screens around the world in the next year or two."
Here is the complete CineLink Work in Progress selection:
Fiction features
Pig – Dragomir Sholev (Bulgaria) In photo: Director Dragomir Sholev, whose Pig has been selected for Work in.
ProgressProducers: Elena Mosholova, Yariv Lerner, Pavlina Angelova
Production companies: Gorilla Film, Nu Boyana Film, Screening Emotions
Nanook – Milko Lazarov (Bulgaria/France/Germany)
Producers: Veselka Kiryakova, Guillaume de Seille, Eike Goreczka
Production companies: Red Carpet, Arizona Films Production, 42film
All Alone – Bobo Jelčić (Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Producers: Zdenka Gold, Alem Babić
Production companies: Spiritus Movens Productions, Dokument Sarajevo
Horizon – Tinatin Kajrishvili (Georgia)
Producers: Lasha Khalvashi, David Hardies
Production companies: Gemini, Artizm, Momento Film
Fig Tree – Alamork Davidian (Israel/Germany/France)
Producers: Saar Yogev, Naomi Levari, Felix Eisele, Sandrine Brauer
Production companies: Black Sheep Film Productions Ltd, Av Medien Penrose, En Compagnie des Lamas
The Day After I’m Gone – Nimrod Eldar (Israel)
Producer: Eitan Mansuri
Production company: Spiro Films Ltd
Mo’ – Radu Dragomir (Romania)
Producer: Liviu Marghidan
Production company: Scharf Advertising
Never Let It Go – Paul Negoescu (Romania/Bulgaria)
Producer: Paul Negoescu
Production companies: N-Graphix, Papillon Film, Screening Emotions
Documentary features
What Comes Around – Reem Saleh (Lebanon/Egypt)
Producer: Reem Saleh
Production company: Mazameer Productions
Honeyland – Ljubo Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska (Macedonia)
Producers: Ljubo Stefanov, Atanas Georgiev
Production companies: Apollo Media, Trice Films.

Oliver Stone to be honoured in Sarajevo
by Vladan Petkovic
25/07/2017 - The US writer, director and producer will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo The Sarajevo Film Festival (August 11-18) has announced that Oliver Stone will be bestowed with the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo.

The prolific American writer, director, and producer has throughout his career been challenging the mainstream norms both in artistic form and established historical and political narratives, in films such as Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Nixon, Natural Born Killers, W., Wall Street, Salvador, U Turn, Savages, Snowden [+] as well as in screenplays for Midnight Express, Scarface, Year of the Dragon, Conan the Barbarian, and topical documentaries like his trilogy on Fidel Castro, and the epic, 12-hour TV series The Untold History of the United States, and the just-released Putin Interviews.
Stone was born September 15, 1946 in New York City. He wrote in 1965 “A Child Night’s Dream” about his youth, and it was published in 1997 by St. Martin’s Press. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry in Vietnam in 1967-68, and received the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. After returning from Vietnam, he completed his undergraduate studies at New York University Film School in 1971. He worked as a wiper in the Merchant Marine, and in New York as a taxi driver, advertising salesman, production assistant, and messenger.
Two weeks ago, the festival announced a Honorary Heart of Sarajevo will also go to John Cleese (read news).