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Last year's festival was pushed online due to
the pandemic. This one will open to audiences at a number of new
screening sites in accordance with COVID-19 restrictions on
gatherings, with nearly a third of locations set in the open
air.
"This year's festival will be a hybrid one - it will mean a
great comeback of the audience into the cinema while a major
part of the industry business will be conducted online," SFF
founder and director Mirsad Purivatra told Reuters.
"Not So Friendly Neighbourhood Affair" by Oscar-winning Bosnian
director Danis Tanovic, a low-budget film that was shot in May
and hastily finished to be shown at the festival, is a
light-hearted story of two businessmen from the same Sarajevo
neighbourhood who become unlikely rivals in post-corona times.
Omnibus "Letters from the Ends of the World" collects video
stories from across the world in which 13 authors, graduates of
the Sarajevo film factory run by Hungarian film director Bela
Tarr, tell their experiences of lockdown and isolation during
the pandemic.
"After a year of isolation, it was a quite logical choice to
open the festival with two films touching upon the isolation,"
Purivatra said.
Forty-eight films will compete in four selections - features,
short films, documentaries and student films - for the Heart of
Sarajevo award.
Eight out of 10 films competing for the best feature are debut
films, with eight female directors.
"This is the youngest line-up ever," said Elma Tataragic, the
selector of the feature competition programme. "It can be seen
in selection - they are all brave, honest, full of life and
uncompromising."
The much-lauded German film director Wim Wenders will get the
Honorary Heart of Sarajevo for his contribution to the art of
film and give master classes.
Other world known film professionals, such as Mexican director
Michel Franko who won the Silver Lion award at the last year's
Venice Film Festival for his film "New Order", will also attend.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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