ABOUT 18th ANNUAL BOSNIAN-HERZEGOVINIAN FILM FESTIVAL - 2022
The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF), being held both in-person and virtually this year, is excited to announce the lineup for its 2022 edition. From a large number of films submitted to BHFF for consideration a total of 10 films were selected for the festival’s final program with an additional 4 films being shown on an online platform only. The 18th Annual festival will also include a series of interactive live Q&A and discussion events with filmmakers, running from Wednesday, April 20th through Sunday, April 24th in-person at the SVA Theatre in New York City and online. Ticket sales are now open.
This year's film selection showcases the breadth of artistic achievements of the filmmakers from Bosnia-Herzegovina, the region, and beyond. The BHFF is delighted to feature the works of many established Bosnian filmmakers alongside new and exciting emerging voices. The themes covered by this year's selected films range from tender and universally relatable family stories, environmental themes that are a pressing issue both locally and globally, fascinating stories about unique individuals, as well as films that tackle war trauma and loss. The festival will also feature a special screening of Jasmila Žbanić's award-winning and globally acclaimed QUO VADIS, AIDA?
The eighteenth annual BHFF will consist of four narrative feature films, three narrative shorts, and four documentary films. Ten films selected to screen at the 18th annual BHFF are eligible to win the BHFF Jury Awards for Best Documentary Film, Best Short or Animated Narrative Film, Best Feature Narrative Film, Best Acting Performance, and the Jury Special Mention, as well as the BHFF Audience Award for Best Picture.
BJELKO
2021 | Almir Zoletić | 27 min
Short Documentary
Mevlo Alić is a shepherd from a small village, Vozuća in Bosnia and Herzegovina left to live alone in an old house after his parents’ death. In order to earn enough money for a decent living, he breeds and sells his sheep to nearby customers. With time, sheep breeding becomes less of a job and a source of income and becomes more of a loving family environment that has provided him with happiness and a sense of belonging.
LOCKDOWN
Zatvaranje
2021 | Chris Leslie | 7 min
Short Documentary
An empty city. A population in hiding. An invisible enemy who surrounds you. Everywhere is the front line. A testimony of fear, survival, hope.
BHFF 2022 PROGRAM
NOT SO FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD AFFAIR
Deset u pola
2021 | Danis Tanovic | 90 min
Narrative Feature
A totally harmless, friendly gesture causes the complete disintegration of the neighbors’ business and private life, engulfing not only Izo and Enis but the whole city. Where can one eat the best kebabs in Sarajevo?
THE WHITE FORTRESS
Tabija
2021 | Igor Drljača | 88 min
Feature Narrative
In a rundown Sarajevo suburb, Faruk is an orphan who lives with his ill grandmother and spends his days foraging for scrap metal and dabbling in petty crime. One day he meets Mona, a timid teen from a politically powerful and affluent family. As Mona dreams of escaping the overbearing toxicity of her home life, she seeks refuge and opens herself up to Faruk, a boy from a world entirely different than her own.
SAVA
Sava
2021 | Matthew Somerville | 74 min
Feature length documentary
Mira Furlan plays the ethereal voice of Sava. Once the longest river in Yugoslavia, she converses with her people who share memories, dreams, and visions of the future on a 990km odyssey downstream. Sava is a witness to human history; a conduit between East and West, the dividing line of great empires, and a common thread between nations. Today she flows along borders through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. As her final words ring out, Sava sings.
DISTURBED EARTH
2021 | Kumjana Novakova, Guillermo Carreras-Candi | 72 min
Feature length documentary
A space in silence, where past has captured present. Taking over, layer by layer, the collective pain enters the landscape, the space, the city. Eventually, it enters us. Srebrenica becomes a reality of today, and our own reality.
SEA BY THE RIVER AND RIVER BY THE SEA
More uz rijeku i rijeka uz more
2021 | Novran Srecaj | 28 min
Short Narrative
Lume as a wife and mother, is left alone in two different period times, for different existential reasons. She hates the war, but she is forced to fight.
WHAT’S THIS COUNTRY CALLED NOW?
Kako se sad zove ova država?
2018 | Joseph Pierson | 37 min
Short Narrative
"What’s This Country Called Now?" is based on the experiences of Aida Cerkez, a Bosnian woman who worked as a reporter throughout the Siege of Sarajevo. She spent four years enduring incessant bombing and sniper fire, and sharing Sarajevo’s story with the world.
BETWEEN MOUNTAINS AND WARS
Između planina i ratova
2021 | Qali Nur, Natali Khalili Tari | 50 min
Documentary
In Sarajevo, a city where Sephardic Jews sought refuge over 400 years ago, the Jewish community lives in coexistence alongside their Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox Christian neighbours. Ester Kaveson Debevec, Rifka Albahari Raus & Laura Papo Ostojić, three Sephardi-Bosnian women not only lived through the 90’s war in Bosnia but also survived the Holocaust. At the heart of the film is the women’s focal point of congregation; the Jewish community centre, situated in the only active synagogue in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Once making up 1/5th of the population in Sarajevo, the community now only exists in its hundreds. Ester, Rifka and Laura’s stories each present hope in times of utter tragedy and horror. Non Jewish neighbours and friends helped them survive the Second World War as children. Almost half a century later, the three women did their utmost to help their fellow Sarajevans survive the siege of their city regardless of one's ethnicity or faith.
FOCUS, GRANDMA
Koncentriši se baba
2020 | Pjer Žalica | 92 min
Narrative Feature
April 1992. Members of a large family strewn around the former Yugoslavia gather around the death bed of their elderly matriarch. She is not well, but the forecast of a family doctor that her death is a matter of minutes away proves incorrect, so the waiting stretches out for days. Relatives start bickering, playing tricks and arguing over the inheritance to be left by the old woman, especially over her large family house in Sarajevo. Despite her deteriorating health, Grandma happily joins the fray. It appears as if that might be what is keeping her alive. Family feuds and intrigues directed against one of the sisters are more important to the family than the clear, terrifying signs of an approaching cataclysm. When the scheming is finally revealed, it is too late. A war has begun in Sarajevo.
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PASSAGES BETWEEN 1980- 2021
Prolazi između 1980- 2021
2021 | Damir Avdagic | 32 min
Documentary
In “Prolazi između 1980-2021 (Passages between 1980-2021) Avdagic works with five people who came to Norway as child refugees in the 1990s. They perform testimonies from the period 1980–95 that chronologically trace the development of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and which stem from members of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation. During the presentation, the participants interrupt their roles and alternate between languages. They humorously look at the history they have in common and share their experiences regarding to national, political and social affiliation.
DARKROOM
2021 | Lukas Maier | 95 min
Feature Narrative
As an image slowly takes shape in a chemical bath under the red light of a darkroom, the memories of Sofija (Dina Mušanović) slowly reveal themselves on the landscape of modern-day Sarajevo over the course of 4 days. Working tirelessly at a hostel, Sofija’s days are long and hard under the watchful eyes of her pregnant boss Lena (Džana Pinjo). Sofija receives an unexpected phone call at work. She must empty her estranged father’s belongings from his office by the end of the week. She is already in the process of moving apartments with her boyfriend (Davor Sabo). At this moment, Sofija is forced to begin facing her past. What follows is a domino series of events that lead Sofija from theft to alcohol, an absurd photo shoot, and ultimately a confrontation with an image of her father (Izudin Bajrović) and her repressed memories scattered across Sarajevo.
RADIO FREEDOM
Radio Sloboda
2021 | Bafl Sarhang, Ismar Vejzovic |
19 min
Short Narrative
Radio Freedom is a story of a ham radio operator trapped alone in a besieged city. He finds refuge in an improvised radio station where he reports war and helps his fellow citizens connect with their loved ones outside the city.
REDRUM
2021 | Amir Karagić | 30 min
Short Narrative
Set in present-day Amsterdam we follow Marwan, a timid coffee shop owner who is forced to face the truth about who he thinks he is when his reckless business partner and girlfriend's abusive ex back him into a corner.
