Keeping the hearts of audiences open to lessons learned and never to be unlearned

Discussing the past is always challenging, and particularly as we face the flickering of a potential global conflict that might engulf us all. Yet, the past always persists. What remains when peace—whether temporary or permanent—finally arrives? Often, what persists is only the traces of memory, a lingering sense of displacement from locales once called home.

This year’s Dealing with the Past programme is shaped by these themes: the void that exists between the familiar and the foreign; the necessity of leaving; and the process of forging new lives and new memories. We explore the arc of displacement, reflecting on what we carry forward and what we leave behind. Once again, we invite audiences to delve into the depths of human experience, traversing the fraught histories of the Holocaust and conflicts in Cambodia, Lebanon, Palestine, and the former Yugoslavia. In exploring episodes of these various conflicts, we are left with the enduring truth that responsibility ultimately rests with individuals.

This year’s reflective, cinematic journey through the past begins with the regional premiere of Michel Hazanavicius’s The Most Precious of Cargoes, which had its premiere at the Festival de Cannes. This animated film is a grim story that resembles a Brothers Grimm fairy tale with subtle hints of magic realism and fantasy, all the while being deeply rooted in the cruel, unbearable reality of the Holocaust.

This film is followed by Ivan Ramljak’s brilliant El Shatt: A Blueprint For Utopia, a documentary that explores the story of refugees from Dalmatia who escaped the horrors of the German invasion after Italy’s capitulation to the Allies during World War II and found a haven in El Shatt, a former Allied Forces base in Egypt. Ramljak’s film sheds light on a subject that is often overlooked by historians but that is important in the context of today’s world—a reflection on what we all share with refugees in our collective history.

Myriam El Hajj’s Diaries From Lebanon, which was showcased to Sarajevo Film Festival audiences as a work-in-progress, continues our focus on the Middle East. Offering unique and varying perspectives on the recent failed Lebanese revolution and its aftermath, the film is as inspiring as it is gut-wrenching, sculpted as a collage of instances of hope and resilience contrasted with utter disappointment, bringing responsibility back to the individual to determine their course of action. After everything, there is still hope.

Life Is Beautiful, the second feature-length film by Palestinian documentary filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly, depicts his own personal struggles in finding his place in Norway after he became stranded there ten years ago while on a student exchange due to the closing of the border at Rafah. We also take special pride in bringing No Other Land, by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Rachel Sozs, and Hamdan Ballal, to Sarajevo audiences, after it reaped rave reviews during its premiere at this year’s Berlin International Film

Festival. No Other Land emphasizes the collective efforts to fight for the truth, by individuals from seemingly incompatible positions, united by a noble common goal in preserving empathy, despite grand narratives corrupting their realities. These four films offer a glimpse into the turbulent past of the Middle East, which extends far beyond the struggles of today.

We present a special programme of short films that concern the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. From Željko Stanetić’s Milena, which concerns the forced displacement of Serbian refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the wars, to Samir Mehić Bowie – Letters From Srebrenica, a film about the late Srebrenica musician who faced disillusionment and hopelessness. This is followed by Nikola Ilić’s expressive documentary Exit Through the Cuckoo’s Nest, a cinematic retelling of his escape from mobilisation during the conflict in Kosovo* while feigning mental illness to escape the madness of war. The programme is crowned by the winner of the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at Cannes: Nebojša Slijepčević’s The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, which concerns the murder of a Yugoslav National Army Captain who stood up to the paramilitary forces that were executing Muslim civilians from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Štrbci in 1993.

On the final day of the programme, two films are dedicated to war reporters and journalists —the people who bring glimpses of truth to the rest of the world while putting their own lives at stake. Lucy Lawless’s Never Look Away is a captivating documentary that depicts the life of Margaret Moth, the brave ‘warrior princess’ camerawoman who fought for the truth on the front lines, camera in hand. Finally, Rithy Phan’s Meeting With Pol Pot traces the fate of three journalists who find themselves in Democratic Kampuchea (now Cambodia) during the bloodiest years of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Alongside its rich selection of films, the Dealing with the Past programme remains committed to its socially engaged nature, welcoming more than twenty-five young participants from the Western Balkans as part of the In Youth Eyes programme, which is made possible thanks to the cooperation of the Freidrich-Ebert Stiftung SOE and forumZFD. These young participants attend the screenings, as well as panel discussions, workshops, and exhibitions during the Sarajevo Film Festival, engaging in meaningful discussion that will serve as a foundation for the development of their critical thinking skills—so crucial in building a better future while taking the reality of the past into account.

We are also proud to announce this year’s edition of the True Stories Market, featuring seven carefully curated, true stories presented by esteemed organisations and individuals. These stories are presented to film industry professionals during an open pitching session, with the intention that some of them will be picked up for cinematic development. After the Festival, attendees are invited to submit concepts for films based on the stories and enter the competition for the €10,000 development award presented by the Freidrich-Ebert Stiftung SOE.

 

This year, the Sarajevo Film Festival celebrates its thirtieth edition. Now seems like a good time to look back at how far our beloved Festival has come, and how it has grown up in up in times of seemingly never-ending transition since its beginnings in wartime. Three decades ago, the Festival opened a window to the outside world for the people of a besieged city. Today, we hope the Dealing with the Past programme keeps the hearts of audiences open to lessons learned and never to be unlearned, so that the humanity in all of us may prevail, never to be displaced.