For the seventh year running, the Sarajevo Film Festival offers a spotlight on regional scripted productions for television via its Avant Premiere Series curated by Tina Hajon, who sees 2023 as an exceptionally interesting year for the lineup’s “universally high production value”.
In total, six series, all eligible for the Unicredit Audience Award, are showcasing one or two episodes each, giving audiences the chance to enjoy small screen thrills and laughs in a movie theater, as has become increasingly commonplace at festivals around the world. (Though dedicated sections are not always a given, as we’ve seen recently with the announcement that the Berlinale is jettisoning its Series strand and returning to the pre-2015 tradition of screening select productions in the Berlinale Special program.)
In the Sarajevo International Film Festival the opening slot has been given to the Bosnian comedy series Smashing It, which is screening the first and seventh episode of its inaugural season. (A similar programming strategy has been adopted for the Serbian thriller series The Call, about a police officer investigating threatening phone calls made to a single mother). Pitched as a satire on fame and the idea of bringing the American dream to the Balkans, the show focuses on Miki, who comes back from Los Angeles with a woman he met Stateside, convinced he’s still a big deal in his hometown. The harsh reality is, no one actually remembers him, despite the best efforts of a local TV channel that runs his old music videos on a loop.
After last year’s The Hollow, acclaimed director Danis Tanovic is back in the Avant Premiere Series selection as the showrunner of Frust, created by Srdan Vuletic and Gabor Krigler. A coproduction between Serbia, Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina, it revolves around a struggling young writer whose lust for recognition takes an outlandish turn when he shoots a criminal and gets acclaimed for his vigilantism.
Also from Serbia comes the drama series The Visit, with four stories based on true events. Each story focuses on a different, completely ordinary person who ends up in investigative detention as they wait to either be released or taken to court. The first two episodes will play at the festival, forming a complete narrative titled The River.
Croatia participates with The Highlands, set in the Gorski Kotar region. The narrative revolves around the lives of the members of the local Mountain Rescue Service. The peaceful scenery contrasts with the inner turmoil of the main characters who, like law enforcement officers in an American procedural, struggle to achieve the right balance between professional requirements and personal lives.
The lone sophomore effort in the program is the second season of the Serbian relationship drama The ABCs of Life. It is the continuing story of a failed marriage that leads to divorce and diverging paths in life. This strong concept rounds out an interesting selection, which promises to deliver pathos, suspense and humor on a grand scale, before regional audiences get to discover how these six stories will unfold in the comfort of their own homes later in the year.
