Discoveries from Bosnia & Herzegovina World Cinema

The year is two thousand and something. An elderly couple live alone in a flat in Sarajevo, with their own rituals: drinking coffee, playing cards, watching TV.

Biography of famous football player Dragan Dzajic.

In august 2010, during the repair of the turbines of the hydroelectric power plant Bajina Bašta, body remains of more than 250 incomplete skeletons were found in the mud of the artificial lake Perućac; the remains belong mostly to the Bosniaks killed by members of the army of Republika Srpska in Višegrad and its surrounding area in the period of 1992/95.

Edina is a playful story about a one night stand of a writer and his own creation. Due to their adventures the writer losses his superpower for being able to change the character and the story and can’t get away from his perfect women character any more.

Two men - one in the West, one in the East, brothers. In both places, life is muted, solitary, nondescript. Here, windows are painted, switches rewired and cigarettes smoked; there, lengths swum, boxing matches prepared for, transactions made. What is it that links these things? Winter swimming pools, the sound of a bell, a bullet passing through bone?

The year is 1983. Found archival material depicts people in the small Bosnian town of Tešanj. Suddenly a well-known figure appears, the filmmaker’s grandfather who died in the Bosnian war. Repressed and hurtful feelings, but also a chance to remember, in a film that calls for reflection.

Made by the Sarajevo Group of Authors (SAGA), a collective created during the siege of Sarajevo, this documentary captures stories of war that occurred during the conflict.

Alena is preparing for an important journey. Her family and co-workers do not want her to leave.

This movie is dedicated to all the cyclical processes of the universe and human beings being a part of the same oneness. Woman`s connection to the moon triggers the rotation of the Wheel. The many cycles of life begin, at the micro and macro level.

The theater troupe is preparing the premiere of the play "The Death of Danton". While they are putting on a play, someone wants to demolish their theater.

Hamdija Šahinpašić (1914-2003) was one of those rare individuals able to memorize songs in their authentic traditional form. Šahinpašić belonged to a family known for its songs. In the early 1950's, Miodrag A. Vasiljević recorded Šahinpašić singing dozen of songs at the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Belgrade. A 1967 publication finally included 300 of his songs, published bilingually in Bosnian and Russian. Šahinpašić himself become the focus of attention of numerous ethnomusicologists and folklorists and his repertoire was preserved on recording of good quality.

A TV movie about the Turkish satirist and the anecdotes surrounding him.

With the arrival of Austro-Hungarians to Bosnia and Herzegovina and by establishing certain elements of a modern European society, Herzegovina has developed an "activity" that has been one of the leading for more than half a century.

Movie about legendary football player, Josip Katalinski Skija (1948-2011). He played for F.C. Zeljeznicar from 1965 until 1975. He collected 41 caps and scored 10 goals for Yugoslavia national team.

Friendship and love at a time of life when impulses and changes are irresistible.

At the Elementary School "Ahmet Hromadžić" in Bosanski Petrovac, there is a good practice that religious education teachers take students to visit various facilities of religious communities that exist in the city in an organized manner once a year. In this way, children get acquainted with the specifics of other religious communities, which results in mutual respect and appreciation of diversity. This film is the story of one such visit.

Mevlo Alić is a shepherd from a small village Vozuća in Bosnia and Herzegowina. In order to earn enough money for a diecent living, he breeds and sells his sheep to nearby customers. With time, sheep breeding becomes less of a job and a source of income and becomes more of a family enviroment. Mevlo takes care of his sheep as any parent figure would to their child. Mevlo takes his sheep walking, talks to them, drinks coffee with them enjoying every moment of his simple yet fulfilled life. After a crippled sheep Bjelko is born, Mevlo decides to take intensive care of him knowing Bjelko wouldn't be financially benefitial, fulfilling every human beings need – to feel needed, to have a sense of belonging.

The film points to the problem of the emergence of organised prostitution within a society that culminates in periods of economic and social crisis. After gaining their wealth, some of the leaders found themselves in high positions especially in state institutions and administrative structures.

Everyone remembers the harrowing footage of the Srebrenica massacre shot by Zoran Petrovic, the only cameraman to capture the events on film. But this week's fascinating documentary shows that the very worst of his pictures never reached our TV screens. Key scenes from Petrovic's rushes were 'lost' or blacked over, presumably to prevent reprisals. We unearth the lost images, and the completed jigsaw is even more heinous than the already blood-spattered picture. Amazingly, Petrovic has never been interviewed by the War Crimes Tribunal about what he saw. For the first time, his incriminating material is available for scrutiny.

At the beginning of Bosnian war in one village, two Serbian soldiers capture two of their Muslim neighbors and take them to shooting.

While Marija is set with her boyfriend, her roommate Nikolina is still a virgin. But, after realizing that the social practices have changed, she has to follow her duties and restructure her beliefs.

A documentary film shot in the occasion of the third anniversary of Bosnian Army.

This film deals with the atrocities of war as portrayed by a film student who spends some time working as a medic. One of the duties he performed was to carry amputated limbs to the cremation furnace. This is a film about the collective madness that engulfed Sarajevo. A one-armed boy is troubled because he can't make big, firm snowballs; a man who lost both legs demonstrates walking on his stumps... The film and the director's story help us understand the commotion and tumult that have occurred in the minds of Sarajevans.

The little mannequin, once content to be sketched, now longs to escape the confines of the canvas.

The violent clash encounter between a ticket collector and a drunk without a ticket, in the tram, turns into an unexpected possible friendship.

Follows the story of several characters whose life constantly interact and in their very own way mutually influence each other.

A love story told only through the hands.

Built solely from forensic visual archive and testimonies, Silence of Reason acts as a memory itself: elusive, fluid, rejecting framing, moving in all directions, spatial and temporal. The singular experiences of violence and torture to women from the Foča rape camps during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina become our own collective memories, surpassing time and space.

A seemingly naive turn of events leads to a disastrous one. Flight of wings leading all the way to WW1.

Tomo, a radio host, records and archives the ganga songs because he is aware that it is going extinct so he wants the ganga to be placed on the list of UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage.

A man on the verge of existence decides to make a desperate move.

A man comes home to discover that someone else is living there.

A filmmaker's trip to Amsterdam turns into an unplanned search for his father. However, when they finally meet, a Pandora's box of trauma and memories will open.

The film follows a young director who wants to shoot her student film, but her set turns into a real comedy of obstacles: her car breaks down, the cameraman loses the memory cards, the lead actors are late, and her jealous boyfriend shows up on set. All of this escalates into an unexpected incident, and the director begins to wonder if this is really the path she has always wanted to take.

A film story about sports success and brotherly love, full of emotions and memories of the time when FK Sarajevo was the champion of the former Yugoslavia on two occasions. Vahidin and Husref Musemić were each in their respective time the goal scorers and best players of the Sarajevo's champion teams.

After stalking a broken family through the night of Sarajevo, Adnan snaps into a musical fugue where his identity becomes tangled in the lives he is following.

In her autobiographical documentary, the young director uses cartoon impressions, photographic memories, and the various stages of baking a cake to draw the viewer into her own stream of consciousness, and using images full of kindness, tenderness, and playfulness, she deals with the sadness that began during a children's birthday party many years ago.

This film documents four delegated performances/castings, featuring participants who are both directly and indirectly actors of war: veterans, civilian victims, disabled individuals, or those traumatised by conflict. Applicants that have been seduced to participate in four castings of imaginary movie altogether agreeing to be part not only of an experimental film, but also of a subversive cinematic social experiment. They signed up for battle in the movie, and got an unexpectedly brutal lesson about conflict. They certainly, but so do we who watch it.

A tale about water fireflies, colorful cows, small wooden houses, wondrous river and some moody folk not aware of all these things.

Nestajanje is the story of an oneiric and surreal journey taken by a girl to look for her missing grandmother inside the nursing home.

Bosnian province, today. Aida has broken off a relationship with the abusive Kerim and wants to go on in her life. But ties are stronger than she thinks and mundane everyday life draws her deeper into darkness. Inspired by true events.

SARAJ’VO describes the real size of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its seductive spirit and scope of the microcosm that it borders. Mustafa Mustafić, the legendary cameraman, filmed the dedication to the city where he spent his life. Regardless of the long and extremely prolific career as a film and television cameramen, Mustafa Mustafić, Pujdo as his colleagues affectionately call him, feels that there are many untold stories of Sarajevo, rituals and undiscovered perspectives on our common and unusual days. THIS IS THE CITY sums up everything about this very unusual environment, together with its inhabitants, guests and tourists.

Ivana, Clara and Marina are three women from different backgrounds living at the same time in Sarajevo. Ivana dreams about moving to the USA, Clara works during the night to save money for her studies and Marina is in love with her best friend who is moving to a different country. Each one fights to achieve her own goals, but most of the time society doesn´t accept what's not in accordance with its norms.

Following the promotion of his selected works, writer Edo Sokolija reveals to the young journalist the secret of his most famous work’s creation. Just as he once reconstructed a true tragic story from a forgotten proverb, now this fateful conversation brings him to the lifeline much like his own.

Life story of a man from birth to adulthood.

After Sead suddenly experiences severe stomach pain, he is taken to the hospital, where the doctor tells him he needs emergency surgery.

In 1921, with spite, enthusiasm and the abundance of poverty, the workers of the Railways built their football club, and then the stadium where both war and peace were officially declared in Sarajevo in the 1990s. Built, demolished, and again, rebuilt - by the love of his fans. The Valley of Jars - more than a stadium.

Mirza, a young Sarajevo orphan, earns easy money by assisting a local drug dealer. Dispatched on a job one day, a chance encounter makes him painfully aware of his despicable role - but equally of the possibility of changing things for the better.

"Looking for Horses" is a film about a friendship between the filmmaker and a fisherman, who lost his hearing during the Bosnian civil war and retreated to a lake to live in solitude. The filmmaker, son of Bosnian parents, struggles to communicate as he lost his mother-tongue due to a heavy stutter. Despite their speech and hearing limitations, a bond develops between the young man and the veteran, as he shares his world of the lake: full of large catfish, wild horses, wide silences, and dangerous thunderstorms. Where for the fisherman the lake stands for a withdrawal from a fractured country, a land of war; for the filmmaker it precisely means the return to that broken place, the land of his parents. They look for ways to communicate, while the camera mediates their growing bond. Taking the shape of a gentle western, "Looking for Horses" is a poetic documentary on trauma, survival, and connection.

The life of the former boxing champion, Marijan Beneš, is interesting from the very beginning, more precisely from his first fights in the Boxing Club "Slavija" from Banja Luka, through the amateur title of European champion in 1979, and further, through several championship belt defenses, to the fight for the title of world champion. The story of the boxing legend of the town on the Vrbas is permeated through this documentary. This achievement was awarded the prestigious "Silver Pine" award in 2004.

A Bosnian immigrant who fled to Toronto after the civil war returns to his homeland in search of a missing friend who has been implicated in war crimes, in this quietly chilling and finely surreal meditation on confronting traumas of the past. (TIFF)

BAGGIO is a story of growing up and the harshness of times we take for granted, a story of family and sacrifice, friendship and finding oneself.

A kung-fu tale from Bosnia and Herzegovina, spiced up with motifs, dialogues and action mas if it hails fro a Chinese movie of the kind about an unknown hero who saves the village.

The story of Džemal Džihanović, the producer of folk music.

On 8 September 2019 Sarajevo hosted its first Pride March, and this film covers its background.

How well do we remember the war? Is it hard for us to talk about it? Do we start remembering suddenly when talking about it? The film investigates the trauma, but not aiming at human pain. On the contrary, this film attempts to open the abysses of the war denial, which have become a dominant, but silent dimension of everyday life in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A documentary about the history of the Bosnian national, linguistic, historical and cultural identity, from the earliest written records of their existence until present day.

What does absence mean to you? From this question, Emina Suljovic, a Bosnian hematologist, shares the first thought that comes to her mind to create a mental map that reveals both herself and the relationship she has with Sarajevo, her native city. In short, Rerun is an internal dialogue carried out through the memories and reflections of Emina, who works with terminal patients, who grew up in the midst of the Sarajevo war between 1992-1995 and who devoutly practices the Muslim religion in a contemporary world. All this in the same way that we repeat a past event in our minds.

Captain comes back from war only to find his beloved in hospital, suffering from syphilis.