I left my heart in Sarajevo!
I first visited the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the summer of 2006, after watching Jasmila Zbanic’s Golden Bear-winning Grbavica. earlier that same year in Berlin. The story of a mother and a daughter grappling with the wounds of the Bosnian War moved me so profoundly that I tattooed the movie title right on top of my heart. Soon Sarajevo itself would acquire a safe and permanent spot on left side of my chest. This is a charming, welcoming, cosmopolitan, bohemian and historical city guaranteed to please even those who can barely find the tiny European nation on a map.
I then returned to Sarajevo last summer with my mother. It was only this year, however, that one of my big wishes became true, and I attended the Sarajevo Film Festival for the first time, now on its 31st edition. The action took place for eight days between August 15th and 22nd, showcasing no less than 238 films. The event, now possibly the largest film festival of the Balkans, started in the basement of a cinema in the autumn of 1995, when the War was still unfolding (the conflict would only draw to a close a couple of weeks after the completion of the event).
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Many reasons to love
This was a very special occasion for me, for more reasons than one. I stayed at the Hotel Holiday, an impressive building with an enormous atrium and 10 storeys, designed by Bosnian architect Ivan Štraus for the 1984 Winter Olympics, and a symbol of resistance during the War. This was also the setting for Danis Tanović’s excellent Death in Sarajevo (one of the very first reviews I ever wrote for DMovies, just a few days after this publication was founded in February 2016).
This yearis also the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide, the largest in Europe since the Holocaust, and there were no shortage of dirty movies commemorating the occasion (most notably Davorin Sekulić’s The Family (pictured below) and Dino Hodić’s No One Will Hurt You, two excellent documentaries).
To top it all up, I casually met Jasmila in person during lunch, as I also shared a meal with a very friendly Michel Franco and a more reserved Paolo Sorrentino. I showed my tattoo to her. The 50-year-old Bosnian director seemed touched that her film meant so much to someone else. I told Jasmila that it was the duty of filmmakers from the country that witnessed such a recent genocide to denounce the one taking place right now in Gaza. She agreed, while accurately noting that what’s happening in Gaza right now is a lot worse. At least the Chetniks spared women and children. Israel sadistically targets them instead. Jasmila and I even took a picture together, an image I shall always cherish and remember. She has since asked Jasmila to send me a screener of her latest film Blum: Masters of Their Own Destiny (2024), which I look forward to reviewing once I’m back from Venice.
Most importantly in a film festival of course are the dirty movies. In total, we published 45 pieces over the course of the event, including 31 publications from films that we watched earlier in various festivals, my in loco coverage and a few reviews by some of our remote and devoted writers. You can read our full coverage of the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival by clicking here.
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The winners and our dirty picks
Below are the festival’s main winners (click on the film title in order to accede to our exclusive dirty reviews, where available):
Three people received the honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award: American actor Willem Dafoe, British actor Ray Winstone, Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård and Iralian director Paolo Sorrentino. They were all present at the event, and some of their most significant work has showcased in the event.
Our dirty favourite included in the Official Competition was Georgi M. Unkovski’s DJ Ahmet (pictured at the top of this article), A North Macedonian comedy about the clash or rural tradition and Tiktok sensibilities and indeed award-winning Yugo Florida, about the collapsing real life of a reality show worker. Aforementioned Genocide doc No One Will Hurt You also deserves special recognition. I hope to return next year,
