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Introducing the Open Air Programme of the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival
There are 15 films in the Open Air programme of the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival, including the opening film KISS THE FUTURE by Nenad Čičin-Šain.
Films in the Open Air programme of the 29thSarajevo Film Festival: ADAPTATION. by Spike Jonze, ANIMAL KINGDOM by Thomas Cailley, ASTEROID CITY by Wes Anderson, BOSNIAN POT by Pavo Marinković, CLUB ZERO by Jessica Hausner, DIE BEFORE DEATH by Ahmed Imamović, FALLEN LEAVES by Aki Kaurismäki, HOTEL PULA by Andrej Korovljev, KAYMAK by Milcho Manchevski, KISS THE FUTURE by Nenad Čičin-Šain, ONLY WHEN I LAUGH by Vanja Juranić, PAST LIVES by Celine Song, SIRIN by Senad Šahmanović, THE DEATH OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL by Goran Kulenović and YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE by Lynne Ramsay.
OPEN AIR PROGRAMME:
ADAPTATION.
USA, 2002, 115 min.
Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Tilda Swinton, Jay Tavare
Charlie Kaufman is a confused LA screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean for the screen, Kaufman's life spirals from pathetic to bizarre. Kaufman's life and Orlean's book become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the other's.
ANIMAL KINGDOM / LE RÈGNE ANIMAL
France, 2023, 130 min.
Director: Thomas Cailley
Cast: Romain Duris, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Kircher, Jean Boronat
In a world hit by a wave of mutations that are gradually transforming some humans into animals, François does everything he can to save his wife, who is affected by the mysterious condition. As some of the creatures disappear into a nearby forest, François embarks with Emile, his sixteen-year-old son, on a quest that will change their lives forever.
ASTEROID CITY
USA, 2023, 105 min.
Director: Wes Anderson
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, Jeff Goldblum
Asteroid City is a dot-on-the-map desert town in the American Southwest. The year is 1955. The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer / Space Cadet convention, organised to bring together students and parents from across the United States for fellowship and scholarly competition, is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
BOSNIAN POT / BOSANSKI LONAC
Croatia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2023, 103 min.
Director: Pavo Marinković
Cast: Senad Bašić, Andreas Kiendl, Birgit Stöger, Bruna Bebić, Admir Glamočak, Zlatko Burić, Igor Kovač, Julia Franz Richter, Goran Grgić, Dejan Aćimović
Faruk Šego, a failed Bosnian writer facing deportation from Austria, must prove that he has made a cultural contribution to Austrian society. His last chance is an off-theatre troupe that can stage a play he wrote as a young man. Faruk's reluctant return to the theatre will force him to realise what is truly important in life.
CLUB ZERO
Austria, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, Qatar, 2023, 110 min.
Director: Jessica Hausner
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Amir El-Masry, Elsa Zylberstein, Mathieu Demy, Ksenia Devriendt, Luke Barker, Florence Baker, Samuel D Anderson, Gwen Currant
Miss Novak joins the staff of an international boarding school as the instructor of a conscious eating class. She teaches her students that eating less is healthy. The other teachers are slow to notice what is happening and by the time the distracted parents begin to realise, Club Zero has become a reality.
DIE BEFORE DEATH / UMRI PRIJE SMRTI
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, 2023, 94 min.
Director: Ahmed Imamović
Cast: Adnan Hasković, Mona Muratović, Milan Pavlović, Almir Kurt, Rade Šerbedžija, Maja Jurić
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, a successful gynecologist who has spent his entire life caring for no one but himself is forced to face the consequences of his actions, including the failed abortion of his latest patient, during a dark-humoured process of organising his own funeral.
FALLEN LEAVES / KUOLLEET LEHDET
Finland, Germany, 2023, 81 min.
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Cast: Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Nuppu Koivu
FALLEN LEAVES tells the story of two lonely people who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path towards this honourable goal is clouded by the man's alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other's names or addresses, and life's general tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness. This gentle tragicomedy, previously thought to be lost, is the fourth part of Aki Kaurismäki's “Working Class” trilogy.
HOTEL PULA
Croatia, 2023, 95 min.
Director: Andrej Korovljev
Cast: Ermin Bravo, Nika Grbelja, Petra Bernarda Blašković, Nika Ivančić, Jasmin Telalović, Maja Izetbegović, Romina Vitasović Lučić, Dado Ćosić
It is 1995. Mahir is a thirty-eight-year-old refugee from Bosnia living in the Hotel Pula, which has been converted into a refugee centre. His days are monotonous and empty, and his history is unknown. A spark of life comes when Una, a young girl from Pula, is drawn to him. Until, that is, the past catches up with him.
KAYMAK / KAJMAK
North Macedonia, Denmark, Netherlands, Croatia, 2022, 106 min.
Director: Milcho Manchevski
Cast: Sara Klimoska, Kamka Tocinovski, Aleksandar Mikic, Simona Spirovska, Ana Stojanovska, Filip Trajkovikj
Two couples go down the rabbit hole of unconventional erotic relationships, respectable at the beginning, happy at the end. Underneath its exploration of the eternal search for love, KAYMAK tackles darker social issues – surrogate parenting, infidelity, the role of women in family and society, human trafficking, and sexual freedom.
KISS THE FUTURE
USA, Ireland, 2023, 103 min.
Director: Nenad Čičin-Šain
This inescapably current story of defiance amid the Siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s follows an underground community that uses music and art to effect change and garner global attention, and the tale of a post-war concert by U2 that celebrates the city’s hard-fought triumph over ethnic nationalism. KISS THE FUTURE is based on the book "Fools Rush In: A Memoir" by Bill S. Carter.
ONLY WHEN I LAUGH / SAMO KAD SE SMIJEM
Croatia, Serbia, 2023, 73 min.
Director: Vanja Juranić
Cast: Tihana Lazović, Slavko Sobin, Jasna Đuričić, Elodie Paleka, Marina Redžepović, Nadine Mičić, Ivana Jerković Vukalović, Gloria Dubelj, Mirela Brekalo Popović, Maruška Aras, Aneta Grabovac, Stojan Matavulj, Ivan Čuić, Stipe Radoja, Filip Radoš
Tina lives in what appears to be an idyllic marriage in q town on the Adriatic coast. She is a housewife who takes care of her six-year-old daughter, while her husband Frane provides for the family. The couple's relationship begins to change when Tina expresses her desire to complete the college education she was forced to abandon due to her pregnancy. Despite his initially consent and his support for Tina's endeavours, Frane starts to show disapproval, initially through minor acts of sabotage. Over time, conflicts become more frequent, and arguments turn increasingly violent.
PAST LIVES
USA, Republic of Korea (South Korea), 2023, 106 min.
Director: Celine Song
Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, Moon Seung-ah, Leem Seung-min
Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartrending modern romance.
SIRIN
Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, France, 2023, 87 min.
Director: Senad Šahmanović
Cast: Danica Ćurčić, May-Linda Kosumovic, Jelena Simić, Lidija Kordić, Marko Baćović, Jasna Đuričić, Milivoje Mišo Obradović, Izudin Bajrović, Momčilo Otašević
Sanela, a Montenegrin of Muslim background who left the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s after her father was kidnapped and killed alongside other Muslims, comes back to the Balkans after twenty years abroad. She has betrayed her origins, erased her own culture, and become a true Westerner. They say the past is a foreign land and that the one who departs and the one who returns are not the same person.
THE DEATH OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL / SMRT DJEVOJČICE SA ŽIGICAMA
Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2023, 114 min.
Director: Goran Kulenović
Cast: Ozren Grabarić, Jelena Lopatić, Goran Navojec, Borko Perić, Slavko Juraga, Luka Petrušić, Slavko Sobin, Nikša Butijer, Vojislav Brajović, Iva Babić, Aleksandra Stojaković, Sanja Milardović, Elma Juković, Admir Šehović, Silvio Mumelaš, Dušan Kovačević, Darko Stazić
The island of Rab, early summer, 1992. Fero, a recently divorced, forty-year old pathologist, returns to the small island town where he spent most of his childhood living with his widowed father. He is here for the funeral of a little girl called Mirna, the daughter of his friend, Globus. As it happens, weird stuff happens on this island during the off-season: apparently, there’s a huge lizard running about; Ranko, the village idiot, is accusing the monks of sawing little Mirna in half; and, to top it all off, there’s the murder of Marillena a.k.a. “the matchstick girl” – a Romanian trans woman, and a prostitute known as the culprit for gonorrhoea cases all around the island. In charge of the investigation is Fero's friend Mungos, the island's chief of police, who draws Fero more and more into the investigation.
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
United Kingdom, France, USA, 2017, 89 min.
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Judith Roberts, Ekaterina Samsonov, John Doman, Alex Manette, Dante Pereira-Olson, Alessandro Nivola
A missing teenage girl. A brutal and tormented enforcer on a rescue mission. Corrupt power and vengeance unleash a storm of violence that may lead to his awakening.
The 29th Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from 11th to 18th of August 2023.