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Sarajevo — The 31st Sarajevo Film Festival will open on 15 August with the world premiere of Dino Mustafić’s dark comedy “The Pavilion,” the story of retirement-home residents who launch an armed revolt after years of mistreatment.

Festival organisers say the screening marks the award-winning theatre and documentary director’s first fiction feature in two decades, following his 2003 hit Remake. Mustafić called presenting the film at his hometown festival “no greater excitement or privilege,” adding that it unites “a large regional cast of well-known actors” to ask how “the oldest generation choose to act according to conscience in today’s world.”

The ensemble pairs Balkan icons Rade Šerbedžija, Mirjana Karanović, Zijah Sokolović and Meto Jovanovski with rising names such as Ermin Bravo and Alban Ukaj. International outlets, including Variety, billed the project as a “dark retirement-home comedy” when the line-up was revealed. Ivančić and Emir Imamović Pirke penned the script, while...

The world premiere of Dino Mustafić’s Bosnian dark comedy The Pavilion, set in a retirement home, will open the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival this summer, organizers unveiled on Wednesday.

“This is a film about the oldest generation who have chosen to act according to their conscience in today’s world,” said Mustafić. “They rise up in rebellion. And rebellions, by nature, come in all forms. This one is different.”

As has become a tradition, the opening ceremony will be hosted by a young acting star from Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Lidija Kordić (Son’s Will, Diva Futura) taking on the hosting duties this year.

“It is a great honor and pleasure for me to have the opportunity to host the opening ceremony of the Sarajevo Film Festival – a festival that has marked important moments in both my professional and personal journey,” she said. “I experienced my...

The delicate balance between personal emotions and professional responsibilities forms the core of the first two episodes of Jasmila Zbanic’s I Know Your Soul. Starring Jasna Duricic, Lazar Dragojevic and Ermin Bravo, the show examines familial bonds, societal expectations and the shadows that secrets cast over relationships. With the first two episodes directed by Alen Drljevic, the series promises an exploration of complex human emotions, social pressures and intricate mysteries that don’t just lie outside but within the very confines of our homes.

Young Emir is smoking a cigarette staring into the void on his rooftop. Looks like teen angst, right? Wrong. He jumps off the ledge to his death, which causes prosecutor Nevena, and detective Džandžo begins investigating. The prosecutor retraces his steps and finds there were no signs of foul play, and now she has to break the news to Emir’s parents Goran and Vedrana.

There are three white fortresses that neatly demarcate the divides so evocatively drawn in Igor Drljača’s “The White Fortress,” recently named Bosnia and Herzegovina’s submission for the 94th Oscars. There’s the grim, encircling tower block in which scrappy low-level hustler Faruk (Pavle Čemerkić) lives with his grandmother. There’s the modernist dream home perched on a hill that belongs to the wealthy, distant, politically corrupt parents of teenager Mona (Sumeja Dardagan). And there’s the famous late-medieval White Fortress, or Bijela Tabija, the national monument that overlooks Sarajevo, where Faruk and Mona spend a single night of their doomed romance in an embrace that inevitably dissolves in the cold light of morning.

The love-across-the-social-divide narrative is hardly new, but writer-director Drljača turns familiarity into an advantage. Along with a gently intense performance from pale-eyed rising Balkan star Čemerkić, it allows him to pay attention to...

These are the submissions for the international film Oscar by country. The deadline for entries was Nov. 1. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced Dec. 21 and the nominations will come out Feb 8. The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27 at the Dolby Theatre. The Academy has not yet released a final list of entries; Variety compiled this list from individual country’s announcements.

Albania

Two Lions Heading to Venice

Dir. Jonid Jorji

Key cast: Vasjan Lami, Alessandra Bonarotta

Logline: A pair of filmmakers heading to the Venice festival are sidetracked from their destination after meeting two adult film actors.

Prodco: Bajo Films

Algeria

Heliopolis

Dir. Djaafar Gacem

Key cast: Souhila Mallem, Mehdi Ramdani, Cesar Duminil

Logline: True story of an uprising in the Algerian town of Guelma that was violently put down by the colonial French rulers.

Prodco: Hewes Pictures

Argentina

The Intruder

Dir. Natalia Meta

Key cast: Guillermo Arengo,...

The line between fairy tale and horror proves a thin one in Igor Drljaca’s The White Fortress thanks to the differing perspectives of young love in Sarajevo. Whether Faruk (Pavle Cemerikic) and Mona (Sumeja Dardagan) believe a life together may yet be possible for them despite coming from opposite social and economic worlds doesn’t factor in because they’re just teenagers buckling under the pressure of outside forces that refuse to let them be free. So while the idea of a happily ever after is nice considering the alternatives (Mona is about to be shipped to Canada by her affluent and influential parents as Faruk teeters on the precipice of a life in crime threatening to destroy the morality his grandmother instilled), the darkness of despair slowly creeps in.

A walk through the woods is thus the scenario that brings up the two genres. Mona sees promise and...

24th edition of European festival comes to a close.

Milko Lazarov’s Aga has won this year’s Heart of Sarajevo prize for best feature film.

The 24th edition of the South-eastern European festival came to a close on Thursday night (Aug 16) and its awards ceremony also saw Ioana Uricaru’s Lemonade scoop the Heart of Sarajevo for best director. Both awards come with a €10,000 prize.

One Day’s Zsófia Szamosi and The Load’s Leon Lučev took the top prizes for best actress and actor respectively.

The Feature Competition jury was presided over by filmmaker Asghar Farhadi and also featured Judita Franković Brdar,...

Academy Nominated and Berlin Golden Bear Winner (Bal/ Honey), Director Semih Kaplanoğlu’s new feature, Grain (Isa: The Match Factory), starring Cristina Flutur, Jean-Marc Barr and Ermin Bravo will have its world premiere in the competition program at the Sarajevo Film Festival August 11–18.

Watch the trailer here.

Besides the screening of Grain costarring Ermin Bravo, Bravo is also starring in another screening at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Men Don’t Cry, directed by Alen Drljevic. This film won just the Special Jury Prize at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Sarajevo Film Festival Competition Red CarpetErmin Bravo

Watch the trailer of Men Don’t Cry here.

Jean-Marc Barr is known for Lars van Trier’s films Dogville, Breaking the Waves, Nymphomaniac, and Europa. He has also just finished shooting for Cellar, directed by Igor Voloshin.

Jean-Marc Barr

Cristina Flutur is best-known for playing Alina in the movie Beyond the Hills (2012), directed...

Michael Winterbottom, Mike Leigh and Michel Hazanavicius among those to attend the festival.

The Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 15-23) has unveiled the guest list for its 20th edition.

Mexican actor Gael García Bernal will be the first guest to meet this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival audience, stepping in front of 3,000 cinemagoers at the Open Air Cinema before a screening of Alejandro González Inárritu’s Amores Perros.

Bernal will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo on the opening night, as will designer and director Agnes B. who will screen her feature debut Je M’appelle Hmmm…

That same night, directors Cristi Puiu, Vladimir Perišić, Aida Begić, Marc Recha, Angela Schanelec and Isild Le Besco will present their short films, compiled as the omnibus feature Bridges of Sarajevo.

The festival will host three Oscar winners. Director Michel Hazanavicius, winner of an Academy Award for The Artist, will visit Sarajevo with his Cannes film The Search, accompanied by his...

Angelina Jolie tells veteran war correspondent Janine di Giovanni what compelled her to tackle the brutal realities of the Bosnian war for In the Land of Blood and Honey – her first film as director

• Feature: 'Angelina Jolie touched our souls' – Bosnia's rape victims have their say

When we meet in a cafe in Budapest, Angelina Jolie has just returned from the Libyan city of Misrata, which sustained one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war. But despite the journey, and what she has seen in the devastated city, she is not rattled. "When I go somewhere, I am always willing to learn about it. I get briefings, I read books, I talk to people," she says. "But mainly I try to go somewhere to bring awareness, to come home and pick up the phone and call someone and try to get something done."

She took this focus and directness,...

Interviews with Angelina Jolie and more for In the Land of Blood and Honey. After adding new movie clips last week, we are pleased to give you interviews from the FilmDistrict drama which opens on December 23rd. Get feedback about In the Land of Blood and Honey from director Angelina Jolie, stars Zana Marjanovic (2 parts), Goran Kostic, Boris Ler, Vanesa Glodjo, Nikola Djuricko, Faruk Pruti, Branko Duric, Ermin Bravo, production designer Jon Hutman, Producer Graham King, Director of Photography Dean Semler, Composer Gabriel Yared and Costume Designer Gabriele Binder. In the Land of Blood and Honey is set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s and tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kostic) and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), two people from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, and Ajla, a Bosnian held captive in the camp he oversees,...

Interviews with Angelina Jolie and more for In the Land of Blood and Honey. After adding new movie clips last week, we are pleased to give you interviews from the FilmDistrict drama which opens on December 23rd. Get feedback about In the Land of Blood and Honey from director Angelina Jolie, stars Zana Marjanovic (2 parts), Goran Kostic, Boris Ler, Vanesa Glodjo, Nikola Djuricko, Faruk Pruti, Branko Duric, Ermin Bravo, production designer Jon Hutman, Producer Graham King, Director of Photography Dean Semler, Composer Gabriel Yared and Costume Designer Gabriele Binder. In the Land of Blood and Honey is set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s and tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kostic) and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), two people from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, and Ajla, a Bosnian held captive in the camp he oversees,...

Interviews with Angelina Jolie and more for In the Land of Blood and Honey. After adding new movie clips last week, we are pleased to give you interviews from the FilmDistrict drama which opens on December 23rd. Get feedback about In the Land of Blood and Honey from director Angelina Jolie, stars Zana Marjanovic (2 parts), Goran Kostic, Boris Ler, Vanesa Glodjo, Nikola Djuricko, Faruk Pruti, Branko Duric, Ermin Bravo, production designer Jon Hutman, Producer Graham King, Director of Photography Dean Semler, Composer Gabriel Yared and Costume Designer Gabriele Binder. In the Land of Blood and Honey is set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s and tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kostic) and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), two people from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, and Ajla, a Bosnian held captive in the camp he oversees,...

Berlinale has unleashed the first few titles from its 2010 line-up. The recently announced titles aren’t anything to write home about but I’m sure we’ll be seeing a few more announcements (including some titles we can get excited about) over the next few weeks.

First titles after the break.

Bal (Honey) Turkey / Germany

by Semih Kaplanoglu (Süt/Milk, Yumurta/Egg, Melegin Düsüsü/Angel’s Fall)

with Bora Altas, Erdal Besikcioglu, Tülin Özen, Alev Ucarer, Ayse Altay

World premiere

Der Räuber (The Robber) Austria / Germany

by Benjamin Heisenberg (Sleeper, Max-Ophuels-Preis 2006)

with Andreas Lust, Franziska Weisz

World premiere

My Name Is Khan India

by Karan Johar

with Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol

Out of competition

Na Putu (On the Path) Bosnia and Herzegovina / Austria / Germany / Croatia

by Jasmila Zbanic (Grbavica, Golden Bear 2006)

with Zrinka Cvitesic (Shooting Star 2010), Leon Lucev, Ermin Bravo, Mirjana Karanovic

World premiere

Shekarchi (The Hunter) Germany / Iran

by...