BHFF 2026 PROGRAM
New York City, April 2026 — The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) in New York City is excited to announce the lineup for its 22nd edition. A total of twelve films were selected for the festival’s official competition program. They include the Sarajevo Film Festival opening film The Pavilion by Dino Mustafić, Mirza Begović’s popular comedy Testament, as well as documentaries made in collaboration with prominent Bosnian cultural figures such as Aleksandar Hemon, Srđan Gino Jevđević and Aida Šehović. The festival will also feature the latest film by documentarian Lidija Zelović, and a new documentary short by multimedia artist Bojan Stojčić. The 22nd annual festival will include a series of interactive Q&As and conversations with filmmaker guests, running from Wednesday, April 22nd through Saturday, April 25th at the SVA Theatre in New York City. Tickets are on sale now!
SVA Presentation 1
Wednesday, April 22, 2026 - 7:30 PM
101 min | Mirza Begović
Feature Narrative
A young Bosnian man faces inheritance disappointment and navigates factory life in 1990s Zenica, while his friend's schemes reveal community tensions before wartime.
SVA Presentation 2
Thursday, April 23, 2026 - 5:00 PM
Biliana & Marina Grozdanova | 108 min
Feature Narrative
(New York Premiere)
Eastern Western is a story of a son raised by two fathers, one from the European East and one from the American West, set on the cusp of the 20th century. Deep in the mountains of the American frontier, Igor, an immigrant and recent widower, struggles to raise his two-year-old son in the harshness of winter. When Duncan, an American horse rancher and friendly acquaintance, decides to move his horse-breeding business and family to California, Igor and his son join the wagon train headed West. After a series of encounters with both friend and foe, Duncan is left with a decision that will affect the family's future forever.
Followed by Q&A
SVA Presentation 3
Thursday, April 23, 2026 - 7:30 PM
Jakob Krese | 32 min
Short Documentary
(North American Premiere)
Hazira survived the Srebrenica massacre 30 years ago. Trapped in limbo within her own country, Hazira's life unfolds in the Ježevac camp near Tuzla—far from the mountain village she fled, now part of the Serbian entity. With biting dark humor and unwavering resilience, Hazira navigates the monotony and hardship of displacement—chopping wood, scrubbing every surface, always in motion to keep the past at bay. Her daily rituals are both a coping mechanism and a quiet protest against a trauma that never fades and a system that has left her behind. As Bosnia and Herzegovina marks three decades since the end of war and the genocide at Srebrenica, Ceasefire offers a tribute to those still living its aftermath. A reflection on survival, memory, and the cost of unresolved history, the film asks: how long can one live in the shadow of a war that never really ended?
Mirko Pincelli | 89 min
Feature Documentary
(North American Premiere)
Thirty years after genocide – the first in Europe since World War II – survivors in Bosnia and Herzegovina still search for their loved ones. Where Have You Been traces the homecoming of the Bosnian-American artist Aida Šehović and her participatory, nomadic monument to the Srebrenica Genocide. With the monument coming to its final resting place after traveling the world for 15 years, those who remain gather at the site of the atrocities to fill thousands of small, ceramic coffee cups in memory of the victims. As they collectively mourn, painful questions endure. What does "never again" mean in a world where perpetrators live with impunity? Can art and empathy help fill the void left by immeasurable loss and trauma?
Followed by Q&A
SVA Presentation 4
Friday, April 24, 2026 - 6:00 PM
Chris Leslie | 71 min Feature Documentary
(North American Premiere)
In Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Partisan Memorial Cemetery—once a striking tribute to Yugoslav fighters who resisted Nazi-aligned forces—now stands shattered, defaced, and engulfed in political controversy. Built between 1959 and 1965 by renowned architect Bogdan Bogdanović, the site has become a powerful flashpoint in a society grappling with the resurgence of right-wing revisionism. The documentary traces the cemetery's transformation from a celebrated monument to a target of neo-fascist destruction, culminating in the 2022 attack that obliterated hundreds of engraved stone markers. While many local leaders and institutions dismiss the memorial as a relic of a bygone ideology, a small group of families refuses to let their loved ones' legacies be erased. Their fight to preserve the site—and what it represents —anchors a broader examination of how histories are rewritten and weaponized.
This screening is co-sponsored by the New Yugoslav Studies Association
Lidija Zelović | 98 min
Feature Documentary
(North American Premiere)
SVA Presentation 5
Friday, April 24, 2026 - 8:15 PM
Lidija Zelović has been portraying her displaced family in the Netherlands since 1993, ever since they fled their war-torn home in Sarajevo. Zelović's film essay exposes the duality that all migrants live with: what is 'home'? By doing so, the filmmaker draws attention to disruptive social and political developments in the Netherlands, which she recognizes from her native (fallen apart) Yugoslavia. Home Game offers a sometimes funny, often confrontational and always sincere look into Zelović's life, which functions as a mirror for the current political climate in the Netherlands and many other countries around the world.
Tarik Berber | 7 min
Short Narrative
New York Premiere)
SVA Presentation 6
Saturday, April 25, 2026 - 2:30 PM
From producer Aleksandar Hemon comes an experimental animated film that explores how small, perishable moments can be carried into the future. Drawn and directed by Tarik Berber, music by Cielo Hemon.
Followed by Q&A
Followed by Q&A
2025 | Mirza Abdagić | 17 min
Short Narrative
(North American Premiere)
After a doctor finds a bunch of butterflies in Sead's stomach, he urges him to get an operation. However, today is Friday the 13th and that might be fatal for the patient. Even though Sead doesn't much believe in superstitions, he accepts the doctor's safer way of treating his problem going to therapy and making butterflies come out of his mouth. Except, Sead would much rather risk his life than talk about his feelings.
Bojan Stojčić | 20 min
Short Documentary
(North American Premiere)
Željezara Zenica, once a steel mill giant, at the height of its power employed 24,000 workers. Hotel Internacional was its crown jewel—a modernist masterpiece intended to host the highest-ranking business delegations. After the partial privatization of Željezara Zenica, the hotel was closed and left to the passage of time, guarded only by former steelworks employees. Opposite the hotel stands the stadium of the Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team, where thousands of fans gather for every match to cheer on and celebrate their national side. Nationalistic celebration of the country echoes through the empty halls of Hotel Internacional—a symbol of the collapse of its industry.
2025 | Mina Vavan | 15 min
Short Narrative
(North American Premiere)
Mahir (28), a tired online journalist stuck translating sensationalist news, moves through his days numbed by routine and moral compromise. Driving home late one night, he witnesses a hit-and-run on a deserted road outside the city. The driver flees, leaving Mahir alone with the injured body of a young woman. As he calls emergency services, his professional reflex kicks in: he photographs the scene and contacts his editor. What begins as an attempt to report the truth quickly turns into an ethical confrontation, as Mahir is pressured to cross every journalistic boundary in pursuit of a "strong story." Alone in the darkness, caught between human dignity and media exploitation, Mahir must decide what kind of witness, and what kind of journalist, he is willing to be.
Presentation 6 is followed by a Q&A
SVA Presentation 7
Saturday, April 25, 2026 - 5:00 PM
2025 | Dino Mustafić | 100 min
Feature Narrative
(US Premiere)
After years of abuse and humiliation, a group of residents at "The Pavilion" nursing home decide to stage an armed rebellion. Armed with illegal weapons, they seize control of the facility, take the staff hostage, and enter into conflict with the authorities. Their desperate struggle turns into a media and political spectacle, while old age becomes their advantage — they have nothing to lose and are ready to go all the way. A new order emerges inside "The Pavilion," driven by revenge and accumulated anger, and negotiations with the rebels become impossible.
Followed by Q&A
SVA Presentation 8
Saturday, April 25, 2026 - 7:30 PM
2024 | Silvio Mirošničenko | 91 min
Feature Documentary
(New York Premiere)
Grandpa Guru presents in an eclectic documentary style the continuity of the work of the band Kultur Shock with special emphasis on the interesting life, music and art of their singer and frontman Srđan Gino Jevđević. We follow Gino's spiritual journey in search of his own identity and place in the world, after leaving Sarajevo during the war and arriving in Seattle, USA, where he meets Krist Novoselic from the Nirvana and Jello Biafra from the punk band Dead Kennedys, who persuade him to continue playing music. Gino is haunted by the question of belonging and the feeling of being torn between life in America, Sarajevo and his mother and family. This is a story of transformation in times of hardship, escaping to the end of the world and a forever haunting demon.
Followed by the BHFF Golden Apples Awards Ceremony.