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The Croatian limited series The Last Socialist Artifact (original title: Područje bez signala) won the top prize for best drama series at the Hearts of Sarajevo TV Awards, the small-screen section of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival.

The TV awards honor excellence among television productions from the region.

In addition to the top prize of best drama series, The Last Socialist Artifact scooped the best actor and actress honors for stars Izudin Bajrović and Lana Barić, as well as the best director nod for Dalibor Matanić and best screenplay honors for writers Hana Jušić, Jelena Paljan and Milan F. Živković.

“I didn’t expect to win this big, it was quite s surprise,” said Tilić, who produced the series through her Zagreb-based Kinorama in partnership with Slovenia’s production company Perfo, Serbia’s Sense Production and Finland’s Citizen Jane. “I’m especially...

Croatian miniseries “The Last Socialist Artefact” was the big winner at the Heart of Sarajevo TV Awards, which were handed out Sunday night during the Sarajevo Film Festival.

The six-part limited series, which is adapted from Robert Perišić’s novel “No-Signal Area,” tells the story of two urban transplants who take over an abandoned turbine factory for a mysterious client in a remote, economically depressed Balkan town. The show took home awards in five of the eight categories for drama series, including best series, best leading actor for Izudin Bajrović and best director for Dalibo Matanić.

Created by Ankica Jurić Tilić and Dalibor Matanić, “The Last Socialist Artefact” is produced by Tilić for Zagreb-based Kinorama, in co-production with Serbia’s Sense Production, Slovenia’s Perfo Production and Finland’s Citizen Jane. The series was part of the official selection at Series Mania last year, where it won the top prize in the International Panorama competition.

Produced in conjunction with Serbia, Slovenia and Finland, Croatian six-part mini-series The Last Socialist Artefact had the perfect pedigree to take top honors in the Hearts of Sarajevo Awards for TV Series, a regional award set up to celebrate the past year’s best small-screen talent from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia.

A study of today’s post-industrial world presented with humor and warmth, The Last Socialist Artefact tells the story of two city guys who take over a disused turbine factory in a depressed backwater with the intention of reopening it. The series’ near-grand slam of awards, winning five of the eight available, was contested by two detective mysteries from Serbian: Awake and Black Wedding.

The inaugural Comedy awards were a little more evenly spread, with the main awards split between Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Advokado, once memorably described as being a kind...

The Sarajevo International Film Festival has unveiled the nominees for its second annual TV awards with 17 series from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia represented across the nominees.

The local series up for awards are: Advokado, Besa 2, Block 27, Black Wedding, Strange Kind of Loves, Dolina rož, Awake, Lenin’s Park, Crazy, Confused, Normal, Underneath 2, Mrkomir I, Bad Blood, The Last Socialist Artefact, United Brothers, Killers of My Father 5, The Silence and Time of Evil.

This year, the award categories have expanded to include drama series and comedy and winners will be honored with the fest’s lauded Heart of Sarajevo award, a prize usually given to the festival’s competition winner.

The Sarajevo Film Festival established the awards for TV series last year, with the aim of promoting and showcasing the highest quality regional television series in the past 12 months to promote their international placement.

Deadline’s Contenders Film: International kicks off this morning, offering up the opportunity to hear from filmmakers who have been making waves around the world in 2021. The second annual event spotlighting international feature films begins at 9 a.m. Pt and will showcase the cream of the crop from this year’s festival awards winners, box office hits and International Feature Oscar hopefuls as the teams behind them discuss their work and inspirations.

Click here to register and watch the livestream.

For Contenders Film: International, we’ve again pivoted to a virtual event, which will boast a robust lineup. In total, talent will appear to discuss 26 titles that will represent their home countries as the official submissions for the International Feature Film category at the 94th Academy Awards. A total of 19 studios, streamers and distributors be on hand with presentations including clips and Q&As moderated by Deadline’s crack crew...

Kocsis was in Rotterdam with her third film ‘Eden’.

Hungarian director Ágnes Kocsis, whose third feature Eden made its world premiere at Iffr this January, is working on a biopic of Pál Szécsi, the famous but troubled Hungarian pop singer of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Szécsi attempted suicide many times and finally succeeded in 1974, aged only 30.

“He had a very incredible life,” Kocsis said of her subject, who remains a huge cult figure in Hungary. “He was half Jewish, half gypsy. He had a girlfriend, a very famous actress, who also had gypsy origins and she also committed suicide...

Harry Potter‘s Arben Bajraktaraj and A Good Day To Die Hard‘s Rasa Bukvic are among the stars to sign up to Tony Jordan’s Gomorrah-esque Eastern European drama Besa.

Bajraktaraj, who also starred in Taken, and Bukvic, who was in The Transporter, will be joined in the 12-part drama by Croatian actor Lana Baric (You Carry Me) and Sebastian Cavazza (Short Circuits).

The series, which is currently in production across south-Eastern Europe, was commissioned by Eastern European broadcast group Antenna and will air on Prva in Serbia, Planet TV in Slovenia and Rtl in Croatia. It is directed by Dusan Lazarevic, a Serbian director who is now based in the UK and has worked on episodes of Misfits and Death In Paradise.

It will tell the story of the Albanian mafia – one of the most secretive and most feared criminal networks in the world. The story centers on Belgrade small businessman Uros,...

Berlinale title Humidity scores hat-trick at national awards during Belgrade Fest; Diary Of A Teenage Girl wins in international strand.

Serbia, the last of the former Yugoslav countries eligible to join the Media programme, officially launched its Media Desk on Friday [March 4].

“Membership in the Media sub-programme of Creative Europe is of crucial importance for Serbian cinema,” Boban Jevtic - appointed as director of Film Centre Serbia last summer - told Screen.

“Our film-makers, production companies and other film professionals will now have access to its 17 different categories of support, and we will immediately start training sessions in order to get them acquainted with the programme and process of project submission and grants.”

The first such session was held the next day, as part of Fest Forward, the fledgling industry section of the 44th Belgrade International Film Festival (Feb 26 - Mar 6).

The festival included the official national competition. Serbia hasn’t had national awards since 2007, and last year...

Wroclaw New Horizons roundup: works in progress include Close Ups and I, Olga Hepnarova.

Wide Management has begun presales on the Polish-German co-production Summer Solstice by Michal Rogalski which was one of 10 Polish films featuring in this year’s works in progress showcase at the Polish Days during Wroclaw’s New Horizons International Film Festival.

Producer Maria Golos of Prasa Film said that German theatrical distribution for the €2.5m film, which is set in Poland after the Nazi defeat during the Second World War, will be handled by Farbfilm.

Separately, Leszek Budzak of the young production company Aurum Film revealed that Jacek Lusinski’s second feature Carte Blanche will be released early next year by Kino Swiat in Poland.

Based on the true story of a history teacher who is losing his sight, the lead part of the teacher is cast with the ubiquitous Polish actor Andrzej Chyra.

Magdalena Piekorz’s third feature psychological drama Close Ups was...

Wroclaw New Horizons roundup: works in progress include Close Ups and I, Olga Hepnarova.

Wide Management has begun presales on the Polish-German co-production Summer Solstice by Michal Rogalski which was one of 10 Polish films featuring in this year’s works in progress showcase at the Polish Days during Wroclaw’s New Horizons International Film Festival.

Producer Maria Golos of Prasa Film said that German theatrical distribution for the €2.5m film, which is set in Poland after the Nazi defeat during the Second World War, will be handled by Farbfilm.

Separately, Leszek Budzak of the young production company Aurum Film revealed that Jacek Lusinski’s second feature Carte Blanche will be released early next year by Kino Swiat in Poland.

Based on the true story of a history teacher who is losing his sight, the lead part of the teacher is cast with the ubiquitous Polish actor Andrzej Chyra.

Magdalena Piekorz’s third feature psychological drama Close Ups was...

Cowboys wins audience award, Hush also wins multiple prizes.

The 60th Pula Film Festival – the country’s national film festival — comes to a close today celebrating a particularly strong year for Croatian film. Co-production Circles and Croatian national production A Stranger [pictured] each won a slew of top prizes.

Croatian filmmaking is having something of a boom time at the moment, both in terms of number of productions and their international appeal – both Circles and A Stranger played in Berlin’s Forum, and Dual and The Priest’s Children were buzzy titles in Karlovy Vary earlier this month.

Pula presented a record 24 titles in its competitions for national films and minority co-productions. The healthy levels of production are in part due to support from the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, but also seeing local broadcasters backing films for the first time in 9 years — such as festival opening comedy Handymen (Majstori) by Dalibor Matanic.

Of course...