Four Ukrainian Films Included in Sarajevo Film Festival Programme
Four Ukrainian films have been selected for the competition programme of the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, which will take place from 15 to 22 August.
The Gaze writes about it, referring to Suspilne Kultura.
A total of 50 films will compete for the Heart of Sarajevo awards in four categories: feature film, documentary film, short film, and student film. Another film will be shown out of competition.
Ukraine is represented in the documentary and student competitions, as well as among international co-productions.
Three Ukrainian projects are included in the feature-length documentary competition programme. All of them will be shown for the first time in South-Eastern Europe:
The film Cuba & Alaska by director Yegor Troyanovsky, co-produced by Ukraine, Belgium and France, tells the story of Ukrainian paramedics. The film will be released nationwide on 14 August.
The film ‘Divia’ by Dmytro Hreshko, co-produced by Poland, the Netherlands and the United States, tells the story of the impact of war on the environment.
‘Militantropos’ is a joint work by Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovoy (co-produced by Austria and France). Militantropos is an ‘emotional cinematic meditation on the impact of war on everyday life.’ The title combines the Latin word “milit” (soldier) and the Greek word ‘antropos’ (human), pointing to how war transforms human nature and society as a whole.
Rada Sheshich, programme director of the documentary competition, noted that many of this year's films address global issues and crises through family or military stories.
‘Even through these seemingly family narratives, we learn a lot about life in a particular environment,’ she said.
Yelyzaveta Toptihina's film 'Curfew' is the only Ukrainian student film in the programme, which features a total of 11 films.
The Sarajevo Film Festival, the largest film festival in the Balkans and one of the largest in Europe, was founded in Sarajevo in 1995, when the city was under siege during the Bosnian War. The highest award at the festival is the ‘Heart of Sarajevo’ prize.
This year's competition programme includes 15 world premieres, 6 international premieres, 28 regional premieres and 2 Bosnian premieres.
The winners will receive cash prizes ranging from €16,000 for the best feature film to €1,000 for the best student project.
In 2023, Ukrainian film director Philip Sotnychenko received the Heart of Sarajevo award in the Best Director category in the feature film competition.
In 2024, Ukrainian director Olga Chernikh received the main award for her documentary film ‘Photo for Memory’. At the same time, within the framework of the CineLink Industry Days industry programme, the films Times New Roman by director Philip Sotnychenko and Divia by Dmytro Hreshko were recognised.