Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its Open Air program, with films such as the Cannes-premiering Minotaur and Diego Luna‘s Ashes set to screen at the fest’s largest venue, the Coca-Cola Open Air Cinema.
Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, starring Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller, will open the section at the Bosnian film festival, with Danis Tanović’s 2001 film No Man’s Land set to close it. The movie takes place in 1993, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By a twist of fate, Čiki, a soldier in the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, finds himself trapped in the same trench as Nino, a Bosnian Serb soldier.
Also premiering in the program is Luna’s film about two siblings forced to leave Mexico and head to Madrid to reunite with their mother, who had left a few years earlier to chase a better future. When they arrive, however, the bitter, suffocating reality that awaits them proves far harsher than imagined. Luna spoke to The Hollywood Reporter at Cannes about the making of the film and why it was a deeply personal project.
Also screening is Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur, another feature from Cannes, following a successful company director called Gleb, who finds himself under siege from mounting corporate pressures and an increasingly unstable world. The collapse of his carefully ordered life accelerates towards violence.
The Berlinale opener No Good Men from Shahrbanoo Sadat is also set for a Sarajevo premiere. It focuses on Naru, the only camerawoman at Kabul’s main TV station, who struggles to keep custody of her three-year-old son after leaving her husband, a serial cheater. Convinced no good men exist in her country, Naru is caught off guard when Qodrat, Kabul TV’s most respected journalist, gives her a career opportunity.
Among other movies premiering in this section are Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved, and Michael Winterbottom’s 1997 film Welcome to Sarajevo, in honor of the recently announced Honorary Heart of Sarajevo recipient Woody Harrelson.
Also on Monday, the Sarajevo Film Festival unveiled its Open Air Premiere program, which brings together the most anticipated new films from the region of the former Yugoslavia. These movies are screened at UNIQA Open Air Cinema Stari Grad, and the best film —selected by audiences — will receive the Prix Cineplexx.
Among the features in this selection are Miroslav Terzić’s 3 Weeks After, Miha Hočevar’s Hidden People, and Marijana Jankovic’s Home. Igor Jelinović’s Honey Bunny will screen, as will Darko Štante’s The Lost Son, Predrag Ličina’s The Virus of Pathological Kindness, and Hari Šečić’s The Widower, about a 62-year-old electrician who was raised and lives in a patriarchal society. When his daily routine changes after the sudden death of his wife, Enisa, Mirsad tries to get used to a life without her and soon realizes that he took her for granted.
The 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival will take place Aug. 14-21.