Croatian films at 27th SFF

The fiction feature competition programme will present eight titles, two of which from Croatia: Juraj Lerotić’s Safe Place and director Dominik Mencej’s debut Riders, created as a co-production between Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Italy and Bosnia and Herzegovina (with company Antitalent as the Croatian production partner).

The documentary film competition will include the world premiere of The Film Factory, an experimental documentary short directed by Silvestar Kolbas. Having its international debut in the same section will be another documentary short, Ante Zlatko Stolica’s Babajanja. Vedrana Pribačić and Mirta Puhlovski’s documentary feature Bigger than Trauma will also appear in the section, screening alongside Srđan Keča’s Museum of the Revolution, which will have its B&H premiere. Lastly, Hungarian director Mátyás Kálmán’s Croatian-Hungarian co-production Paying a Visit to Fortuna will also have its world premiere in the same section.

Another Croatian title, Nebojša Slijepčević’s My Neighbour Wolf, will have its global debut in the short film competition. The winner in this category enters the running for a nomination for the European Film Award for Best Short Film.

The competition devoted to student films will feature 11 titles, including two Croatian ones: Martina Marasović’s My Nikola, and Josip Lukić and Klara Šovagović’s It’s Not Cold for Mosquitoes (Academy of Dramatic Art). The screenings of both films in the section will be their world premieres.

The section In focus offers a screening of Croatian minority co-production Butterfly Vision by Ukrainian director Maksym Nakonechnyi (Croatian co-producer is 4Film). In focus showcases the best works of regional cinema from the previous and current year, including a total of seven titles. Films in this selection are not in the running for festival awards.

Pjer Žalica’s minority co-production May Labour Day (Croatian co-production partner is Propeler Film) will, on the other hand, appear in the Open Air section. Its world premiere on 19th August will be the closing film of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival.

This year’s Avant Premiere programme presents a meticulous selection of the recent regional drama series production. The audience will get a pre-premiere sneak preview of the first two episodes of six series from the region. One of these is Dario Vince’s Croatian series Metropolitans. The drama series in the Avant Premiere programme compete for the Audience Award sponsored by UniCredit.

The programme Dealing with the Past features famous filmmakers who have made films based on true stories, as well as new directors who re-examine the position of individuals whose lives have been marked by traumas of the recent past. This year, the programme will include a screening of Eduard Galić’s Sixth Bus.

Under the auspices of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Sarajevo Film Festival once again organizes the programme Human Rights Day, which will, among others, include a screening of the minority Croatian co-production, The New Greatness Case, directed by Anna Shishova (Croatian co-production partner is Nukleus Film).

This year’s BH Film programme, presented in collaboration with the Association of Filmmakers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will showcase 54 titles, including four Croatian co-productions: Aida Bukvić’s Children from CNN, Simon Bogojević Narath’s Illyricvm, Pjer Žalica’s May Labour Day, and Sara Božanić’s short Cinda Real.

Croatian director and scriptwriter Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović will sit on the jury of the fiction feature programme.

The honorary Heart of Sarajevo will be awarded to directors Ruben Östlund and Sergei Loznitsa. More information about this year’s edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival is available on the festival’s official website. 

CineLink Co-Production Market, Drama, Work in Progress, Docu Rough Cut Boutique, Docu Talents from the East, Producers’ Lab, Talents Sarajevo and CineLink Talks

Croatian film professionals will also participate in the SFF industry section, the CineLink Industry Days. The industry section runs 13th – 18th August.

This year, the CineLink Co-Production Market presents 12 feature-length fiction projects in development, including two Croatian ones. One is the first-time feature directed by Mate Ugrin, Petty Thieves, while the other is Mum, a minority co-production project by director Nikola Ležaić and producer Siniša Juričić (Nukleus Film). The list of all selected projects is available on this link. 

The CineLink Drama co-production forum featuring presentations of seven top drama series projects from Southeast Europe in front of European and regional TV and VoD/SVod professionals, will also include two projects from Croatia. The first is Rumpus, a Kinorama production created by Dubravka Turić and Danijel Žeželj, while the second is creator Saša Podgorelec’ project Hela After All. The full list of selected projects for the CineLink Drama programme may be found on this link.

The co-production forum CineLink Drama, this year once again offers a cash prize for further development of a project in the amount of 15,000 euros, awarded by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. Forum jury members are Ognjen Sviličić, Henning Kamm and Cia Edström.

The Work in Progress programme is intended for the latest feature films or documentaries in production or post-production phase, coming from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet republics). Of the 12 selected projects, one is a Croatian minority co-production: the debut feature, Sirin, by Montenegrin director Senad Šahmanović. The list of all the projects selected for the Work in Progress programme may be found here.

The Docu Rough Cut Boutique programme showcasing documentary projects in post-production phase from Southeast Europe will also present Croatian feature documentary title Bride in Search of Happiness, directed by Tea Vidović Dalipi, with Oliver Sertić as producer. The list of all selected projects is available on this link.

The programme Docu Talents from the East is created as a collaboration between the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and will present nine creative documentary feature projects in post-production phase from Central and Eastern Europe, two of which are from Croatia: Goran Dević’s What’s to Be Done? and the feature-length hybrid documentary, Between Revolutions, directed by Romanian director Vlad Petri. The list of all selected projects is provided here. 

This year also marks the first edition of the CineLink Producers’ Lab – a programme intended for producers just starting their careers. Of the 19 participants, two are from Croatia: Tea Matanović from production company Antitalent and Ana Vidović from Digital Cinema Environment. Details about the programme and the list of selected participants may be found on this link.

Four Croatian film professionals will participate in the Talents Sarajevo programme. These are Luna Pilić (actress), Adrijana Prugovečki (producer), Rene Gallo (screenwriter) and Marija Krstanović (film critic). The list of all programme participants is available here. 

CineLink Talks offers masterclasses, talks and panel discussions tackling key issues in the film industry. Marina Andree Škop (of production company PomPom Films) and Robert Zuber will participate in this year’s events. Find all the details related to the topics, participation and applications here. All other information is available on the official website of the CineLink Industry Days.