The Dealing with the Past program at the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival is an additional platform for testimonies and stories that can serve as a base for developing film scripts, projects and films. The aim of the program is to initiate dialogue in the countries formed from the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and to deal with problems arising as a result of the wars in the region.
As part of the Dealing with the Past program, the True Stories Market was launched, the purpose of which is the presentation of stories and collected materials (personal testimonies). This year’s program will present authors who became famous with films about real events, as well as new authors who question the position of individuals whose lives have been marked by trauma from the recent past.
Two films in this year’s program, Mamula All Inclusive by Aleksandar Reljic and War Souvenirs by Georg Zeller, will have their world premieres, and both are based on stories that were presented as part of the previous editions of True Stories Market.
The Dealing with the Past program is supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).
DEALING WITH THE PAST PROGRAM
CINÉ-GUERRILLAS: SCENES FROM THE LABUDOVI? REELS
Serbia, France, Croatia, Montenegro, Qatar, 2022, 94 min.
Director: Mila Turajli
CINÉ-GUERRILLAS: SCENES FROM THE LABUDOVIC REELS is a feature-length documentary that takes us on an archival road trip through the birth of the Third World project, based on unseen 35mm materials filmed by Stevan Labudovic, the cameraman of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito. The film plunges us into the media battle that played out during the Algerian War of Independence, where cinema was mobilised as a weapon of political struggle against colonialism. Together with NON-ALIGNED, the film forms a documentary diptych.
DELEGATION / HA’MISHLAHAT
Poland, Israel, Germany, 2023, Colour, 99 min.
Director: Asaf Saban
Cast: Yoav Bavly, Neomi Harari, Leib Lev Levin, Ezra Dagan, Alma Dishy
Three Israeli high-school friends take part in a class trip visiting Holocaust sites in Poland – their last time together before going into the army. During the trip, shy Frisch, aspiring artist Nitzan, and class heartthrob Ido deal with issues of love, friendship, and politics against the backdrop of concentration camps and memorial sites. This journey will change them forever.
FACING DARKNESS
France, Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2023, 110 min.
Director: Jean-Gabriel Périot
The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 1992 to February 1996. Young men were called up to protect their city; a few of them took along their video cameras to face the violence they witnessed throughout those gruelling 1,425 days. Now, thirty years later, they show us their films and share their wartime filming experiences and thoughts on cinema as a means of survival and resistance.
MAMULA ALL INCLUSIVE – World Premiere
Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, 58 min.
Director: Aleksandar Reljic
Ivo Markovic, a surviving former inmate of the Mamula prison camp, opposed the decision of Montenegro’s government to build a luxury hotel at the location of a World War II prison camp where countless civilians suffered.
SOUVENIRS OF WAR – World Premiere
Italy, 2023, 75 min.
Director: Georg Zeller
When does a war come to its end? SOUVENIRS OF WAR takes us on a reflective trip around Bosnia and Herzegovina more than two decades after the country was the site of the first post-World War II armed conflict in Europe, where many sites of genuine sorrow have been turned into tourist attractions. A walk along the fine line between dark tourism and an empathetic culture of remembrance, where some enjoy playing war games on the battlefields of a real conflict, while others struggle with turning their very real traumatic legacy into an opportunity.
THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD / NAJSRE?NIOT ?OVEK NA SVETOT
North Macedonia, Belgium, Slovenia, Denmark, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2022, 95 min.
Director: Teona Strugar Mitevska
Cast: Jelena Kordi?, Adnan Omerovi?, Labina Mitevska, Ana Kostovska, Ksenija Marinkovi?, Izudin Bajrovi?, Irma Alimanovic, Vedrana Božinovic, Mona Muratovic, Nikolina Kuja?a, Siniša Vidovic, Kemal Rizvanovic
Asja, a forty-year-old single woman, lives in Sarajevo. In order to meet new people, she ends up spending her Saturday at a speed-dating event. She’s matched with Zoran, a forty-three-year-old banker. However, Zoran is looking not for love but for forgiveness.
THE MARCH ON ROME / MARCIA SU ROMA
Italy, 2022, 98 min.
Director: Mark Cousins
Cast: Alba Rohrwacher
Through little-seen archives and his characteristically cinematic analysis, Mark Cousins narrates the ascent of fascism in Italy and its fallout across 1930s Europe. At once essay film and historical document, the film contextualises history through the now, holding up a mirror to a political landscape of a creeping far right and manipulated media.
THE UNCLE / STRIC
Croatia, Serbia, 2022, 104 min.
Director: Andrija Mardešic, David Kapac
Cast: Miki Manojlovic, Ivana Rošci?, Goran Bogdan, Roko Sikavica, Kaja Šišmanovic
Yugoslavia, late 1980s. A family welcomes their beloved uncle, who is coming home for the holidays from Germany. The joyful Christmas lunch is interrupted by a smartphone ringing. It becomes clear it’s not the 1980s, it’s not Christmastime, and it is not just the festive turkey that can be cut with a knife, but the tension as well.
The 29th Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from 11th to 18th of August 2023.
