Festival In Focus: How Sarajevo Film Festival’s Industry Strand Is Shaping Balkan Talent To Meet The Global Demands Of Film & TV

Naman Ramachandran On Aug. 24, Ukraine independence day, the Venice Film Festival has revealed that it will host a Ukrainian Day on Sept. 8, as part of the festival’s Venice Production Bridge initiative. The day will kick off with a panel discussion introduced by the president of the Biennale, Roberto Cicutto, and the artistic director of the 79th festival, Alberto Barbera. Panelists include the Ambassador of Ukraine to Italy, Yaroslav Melnyk; the head of the National Cinema Institution of Ukraine, Marina Kuderchuk; the director of the film “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” (which will screen in competition in the festival’s Horizons strand), Antonio Lukich; the director of the film “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” (screening out of competition), Evgeny Afineevsky; the exhibiting artist in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 59th Biennale Arte, Pavlo Makov; the curator of the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 59th Biennale Arte, Boris Filonenko; the representative of Ukraine’s Council for State Support of Cinematography, Polina Tolmacheva; the Cultural Attaché of Ukraine, the actor and filmmaker Daria Tregubova; and the producer and head of civic organization Andriy Nogin. The panel will be moderated by Volodymyr Ostapchuk.

Charlotte Gainsbourg is set to be honored at this year’s Zurich Film Festival with the Golden Eye award. Gainsbourg will be presented with the award on September 26 at the festival and the presentation will be followed by the world premiere of her latest film The Almond and the Seahorse, starring Rebel Wilson.

K.J. Yossman The line-up for Grimmfest’s International Festival of Fantastic Film 2022 edition has been unveiled.“The Loneliest Boy In The World” (U.K.) is set to open the U.K.

Christopher Vourlias Croatian writer-director Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” an emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt, took the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which wrapped a record-setting 2022 edition in the Bosnian capital on Friday night.The Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film was given by a jury headed by Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise (“The Great Freedom”), which included French filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (“Earwig”), Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Serbian actor Milan Marić (“Dovlatov”) and Israeli producer and consultant Katriel Schory.“Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story — a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo. Fresh off a triumphant world premiere in Locarno, where the film won three awards including best first feature, “Safe Place” was described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as a “supremely poised and moving first feature” and a “shattering” debut, “with a long trail of further festival bookings surely ahead.”Ukrainian director Maryina Er Gorbach was named best director for “Klondike,” which portrays the brutal realities of the war unfolding in Ukraine’s Donbass region through the lens of a pregnant farmstead owner whose life and home fall apart.

Eight films battled it out in competition at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, but Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s jury—including French director Lucile Hadžihalilović , Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Serbian actor Milan Marić and Israeli producer Katriel Schory—spread the love quite widely.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorZurich Film Festival has revealed the lineup for its Hashtag section, which is devoted to “a topic that is trending on social media,” the event said Thursday. This year’s section screens films under the title #MyReligion, and deals with “questions of faith, euphoria and modern deities.”“Whether in the U.S.A., Russia or the Middle East, we are seeing a comeback of religions,” Christian Jungen, ZFF artistic director, said.

tiff.net.The full list of new additions:TIFF DOCS“752 Is Not a Number,” Babak Payami | Canada“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Laura Poitras | USA“Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On,” Madison Thomas | Canada“Casa Susanna,” Sébastien Lifshitz | France, USA“Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudovic Reels,” Mila Turajlic | Serbia, France, Croatia, Montenegro“The Colour of Ink,” Brian D.

Guy Lodge Film Critic“Rule 34,” a challenging and sexually explicit film from Brazilian director Julia Murat, has emerged as the surprise winner of the Golden Leopard award at this year’s Locarno Film Festival — an edition where typically audacious and formally ambitious work dominated the program.

Christopher Vourlias In some ways it’s a year of transition for the Sarajevo Film Festival, which sees former industry head and co-director Jovan Marjanović take the helm as festival director, while long-time staffer Maša Marković takes over as head of industry. For Marković, who began her career at the long-running Bosnian fest 15 years ago, the change “was kind of organic,” offering the kind of smooth transition that has allowed Sarajevo to retain its position as the leading industry confab in Southeast Europe.For nearly three decades, the festival has identified and launched local talent while serving as a think tank of sorts for the region’s rapidly evolving screen industries.

“Empire of Light,” the latest feature film from Oscar winner Sam Mendes, has locked its European premiere with a gala screening at the 66th annual BFI London Film Festival. Starring Olivia Colman, Michael Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones and others, the 1980s–set film “is a powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinema,” distributor Searchlight Pictures said in a statement. The film’s stars – including Colman, Firth, and on-the-rise BAFTA winner Ward – are expected to be in attendance at the festival’s American Express Gala screening on Oct.

Christopher Vourlias When the first edition of what would become the Sarajevo Film Festival was held in 1995, the Bosnian capital was in the final year of a devastating, four-year siege. Electricity shortages plunged the city into darkness, while food and hard currency were scarce.

‘Love Island’ Snapped Up In Greece

EXCLUSIVE: The New York-based Visit Films has acquired world rights excluding Canada to the video store dramedy I Like Movies, which will debut as part of the Discovery program at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentKino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Pietro Marcello’s sprawling post-WWI film “Scarlet,” which opened Cannes’ Directors Fortnight.Represented in international markets by Orange Studio, “Scarlet” will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival, before a theatrical release in 2023.A loose adaptation of Alexander Grin’s novel, “Scarlet” marks Kino’s second collaboration with Marcello. It follows “Martin Eden,” which competed at Venice, won best actor for Luca Marinelli and went on to play at Toronto.Marcello, who rose to prominence as a documentarian with his film “The Mouth of the Wolf,” penned the script for “Scarlet” with his regular screenwriting partner Maurizio Braucci (“Martin Eden”) and Maud Ameline, with the participation of novelist Geneviève Brisac.

Naman Ramachandran American narrative feature projects in rough or final cut seeking finishing funds are now invited to submit to the 2022 edition of U.S. in Progress, which takes place Nov. 9-11 during the 13th American Film Festival (Nov.8-13) in Wroclaw, Poland.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterDirector Mary Harron’s “Dalíland,” a movie about influential surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, will have its world premiere as the closing night film for the 47th Toronto International Film Festival.The movie will debut on Saturday, Sept. 17 at Roy Thomson Hall.Ben Kingsley is playing Salvador Dalí in “Dalíland,” which tells the story of his strange and fascinating marriage with his wife Gala as their seemingly unshakeable bond begins to crack.

Going back in the archives a bit, we first reported that a new “Spawn” film was being made way back in 2016. And over the past six years, comic book creator Todd McFarlane has been hyping it up as a new reinvention of the character and a stark contrast to the original 1997 film.

The Inspection, Elegance Bratton’s narrative feature debut, will close out the 60th New York Film Festival with its U.S. premiere Oct. 14.

Jovan Marjanović has been with the Sarajevo Film Festival for more than two decades and while he is what he describes as “a true child of the festival” this year marks the first edition where he’ll sit as director of the much-loved Balkan event, taking the reins from founder and long-time director Mirsad Purivatra.