Croatian films competing at the SFF

In addition to The High Sun, the competition programme of the Sarajevo Film Festival, running from August 14th to 22nd, will screen three other Croatian films: the minority coproduction Our Everyday Life directed by Ines Tanović, as well as the documentaries I Like That Super Most the Best by Eva Kraljević, and Chasing a Dream by Mladen Mitrović which will have its world premiere at the SFF. The non-competitive programme In Focus, which features the best regional cinematographic works, will screen the debut feature film You Carry Me directed by Ivona Juka and the minority coproduction No One’s Child by Vuk Ršumović.

Two Croatian film professionals in SFF juries

Two Croatian film professionals will be part of the juries at the SFF. The ‘Heart of Sarajevo’, the most prestigious award for best feature film at the festival, will feature a jury headed by Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer, and will include Croatian actress Zrinka Cvitešić, British producer Mike Downey, Serbian director Maja Miloš, and artistic director of the Cartagena Film Festival in Colombia Diana Bustamante. In the EFA (European Film Academy) jury are the selector and producer of Festival 25 FPS Marina Kožul, Laurent Crouzeix, one of the executive producers of the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, as well as Israeli director Tom Shoval. Una Gunjak, director of the award-winning short The Chicken, will be on the short film category jury. 

Open Air, Mediterranean Film Festival Split, Zagreb Film Festival (Best of Checkers), Avant Premiere

Among other films, Ognjen Sviličić’s film These Are the Rules will be screened in the Open Air programme.  Besides premiers of new Bosnian films, the public will, under the stars, have the chance to view an exceptional European production, an independent American production, along with regional documentary productions. As well, within the BH Film Programme, which screens virtually every film produced in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last year, as well as those from authors living and working abroad, the Bosnian-Croatian-Austrian coproduction Lost Button, directed by Renato Tonković, Robert Bubalo and Marijo Vukadin, will be screened. A special programme, 1995 - 2015 Dealing with the Past, will feature the Croatian-Danish-English-Serbian coproduction 15 Minutes - The Dvor Massacre directed by Georg Larsen and Kasper Vedsmand. 

Within the Mediterranean Film Festival Split programme, five Croatian shorts and documentaries will be screened: Ana the Square directed by Jelena Novaković, The Marjan Hill Day and Teddy Bear by Igor Jelinović, The Dead Have It Easy by Matea Šarić and Well directed by Ivan Šušnjar. The Zagreb Film Festival (Best of Checkers) will feature four shorts: Manjaca directed by Tin Žanić, Semifinals by Tomislav Šoban, Hands by Jasna Nanut and On Shaky Ground by Sonja Tarokić.

The debut feature film by Anđelo Jurkas Because of You will have its avant premiere within the Avant Premiere Trailers section. The public will have the chance to view the trailer and clips from the film which is expected to premiere on Valentine’s Day 2016. 

Talents Sarajevo, CineLink, Children’s Program, TeenArena

Nine young Croatian film professionals will be participating in the 9th consecutive Talents Sarajevo, the SFF’s program geared toward young film professionals in the region. They include: actresses Amanda Prenkaj, Doris Pinčić and Tina Orlandi, actors Ivan Pašalić and Kruno Bakota, director Karla Lulić, producers Ana Rajić and Tomislav Ivković, and screenwriter Lidija Špegar. Talents Sarajevo came about in cooperation with the Berlinale Talents program and the Berlin International Film Festival. During the course of seven days there will be numerous lectures, panel discussions, workshops and events focused on the professional networking of film talents.

The coproduction market CineLink presents the most perspective regional feature film projects in the developing and financing phases, and within its selection is the Croatian-German-Macedonian coproduction Life Begins (aka Freestyle) directed by Sergej Stanojkovski, and written by Ognjen Sviličić. The producers, along with Sergej Stanojkovski are Marcelo Busse and Tomi Salkovski.

The Children’s Programme and TeenArena will feature the animated children’s film Let’s Play a Story - The Grasshopper and the Ant by Marina Andree Škop, as well as the minority coproduction Next to Me by Marta Prus, and Jure Pavlović’s award-winning Picnic. 

A detailed schedule can be found in the publication Love Croatian Film – Sarajevo 2015, while all Festival information can be found here.