Sarajevo 2026: The Swiss Connection

Thirty years ago, the Swiss embassy was established in Sarajevo. It’s especially significant that for Sarajevo 2026, the 32nd edition of the Balkans’ prime film festival, Switzerland is being spotlighted at the CineLink Industry Days. The choice feels inevitable — anniversary considerations notwithstanding — given the proximity and partial overlap, in terms of dates and programming, of Sarajevo and Locarno, the latter wrapping up its 79th edition just as its Bosnian colleague gets started.

The strong connection between Switzerland and the Balkans is perhaps best exemplified via the filmography of Blerta Basholli, a Kosovo-born director who has been a Sarajevo regular since 2006. Her fiction debut Hive (2021), co-produced by the Swiss company Alva Film, was a major hit at Sundance and went on to become Kosovo’s submission for the Oscars that year, a fate that has also befallen her latest feature Dua, another Swiss co-production, which is competing in Sarajevo after a successful world premiere at the Critics Week in Cannes a few months ago.

Given both festivals’ commitment to showcasing films that deal with social issues in a cinematically powerful way, the focus on Switzerland gains further poignancy by virtue of a very recent development: the day before the start of Sarajevo, the Swiss submission for the Oscars was announced, after an initial three-title shortlist had been published the previous week. The final choice fell upon Nicolas Wadimoff’s Who Is Still Alive, a harrowing and compelling documentary depicting the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza via the recollections of a group of refugees sitting together in a room where the silhouette of their neighborhood has been crudely drawn on the floor. National media have praised the selection for its blend of artistic and political considerations, although whether it will convince Academy voters remains to be seen (Switzerland hasn’t been nominated since 1991, when Xavier Koller’s Journey of Hope won the award).

A different kind of urgency will play out on the festival screens, as the public program embraces its socially conscious side with, among other things, a showing of the new 4K version of Danis Tanovic’s Bosnian war classic No Man’s Land, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Relevant topics are also likely to be part of the conversation during the masterclasses with Sarajevo’s guests of honor, with this year’s roster boasting names such as Mexican actor and filmmaker Diego Luna and directors Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland), Asghar Farhadi (Iran) and Céline Sciamma (France). And even the most mainstream name, one Woody Harrelson, is bound to deliver memorable soundbites (his visit to the Zurich festival ten years ago remains a highlight of that event).

Alongside the bigger subjects, there will be plenty of room for smaller, more intimate stories. The main competition in particular, while showcasing films from regions whose input tends to be at least subtly political, has an array of entries where human connection – particularly familial bonds – is forefronted. Such is the case with Sandra Wollner’s Everytime, one of hotter tickets on the global festival circuit after it won the Un Certain Regard prize in Cannes, or the very recent Locarno premiere You Don’t Belong Here, where a Romanian father’s life is upended when his son, whose nightly activities he is oblivious to, ends up becoming a murder suspect. All that, and more, is forming the backbone of a festival that, alongside its Swiss peer, continues to make a case for itself as a quintessential August rendezvous for cinephiles.