Why Sarajevo Film Festival Remains ‘Place to Be’ for Balkan Talents

Across more than two decades as the parallel arm of the Sarajevo Film Festival, CineLink Industry Days has grown into the leading film and TV industry event in the Balkan region, an incubator of talent from Southeast Europe — and, increasingly, beyond — and a crucial stop for globetrotting industry executives looking to discover fresh cinematic voices.

The mid-summer event, which this year takes place Aug. 17 – 22, traditionally comes on the heels of the Locarno Film Festival and wraps in the run-up to Venice and Toronto, occupying a perhaps fitting slot in the calendar. “Not too big, but not small at all,” is how Maša Marković, now in her third year as the festival’s head of industry, characterizes it. As a result, Sarajevo “manages to create this sense of being the place to be.”

Marković credits the event’s “curational approach” for ensuring that both the selection of projects for its influential CineLink Co-Production Market and the lineup of invited guests allows filmmakers, distributors, programmers and other industry tastemakers to make the most of their time in the Bosnian capital. “[It’s] the place where you have the chance to be present and dedicate your time to people and projects that you want to do. This is central to us,” she says.

While that tried-and-true approach has won Sarajevo its share of devoted fans and longtime regulars, this year will see a host of changes to both the festival and its industry arm. Chief among them for industry guests is the move from CineLink’s long-established hub in the historic Hotel Europe to a new venue, the ultramodern Swissotel, located in the heart of downtown Sarajevo.

The move is part of a broader plan to redraw the blueprint of the annual event that includes the construction of a new open-air cinema and the creation of an outdoor event hub, Festival Garden. Those venues will help shift the focus of festival and industry activity from the city’s atmospheric — and touristic — Old Town to its modern counterpart.

Marković says the change will both offer a “new vibe” for overseas guests while also bringing “more visibility to the industry” by hosting events in the city’s commercial center. “We have been there. Our biggest cinema venue is there. We are constructing a new open-air cinema there as well,” she says. “For us, it felt like a logical step to embrace this quarter as ours and to bring the industry to the heart of Sarajevo.”

This year also marks a shift with the appointment of Ishak Jalimam as the new head of CineLink, taking the reins from Amra Bakšić Čamo, who ran the industry program since its inception. Čamo has stepped down to focus on developing new projects under the Sarajevo Film Festival’s umbrella.

Marković describes Jalimam, a veteran producer with extensive experience in both production and management, as “a child of the festival…[who] brings a fresh perspective and a new dynamic to the market.” Drawing on both his work as a producer and his managerial roles at Sarajevo and other fests, “he has the approach to sense what you need as a producer, and also how the market needs to react,” she says.

As CineLink head, Jalimam oversees the selection of projects for both the co-production market and the works-in-progress strand. This year’s lineup includes a number of CineLink alumni, including Philip Sotnychenko, who won the festival’s directing prize last year for “La Palisiada” and returns to the event with the Ukraine war drama “Times New Roman”; Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, directors of the Locarno competition title “Cat in the Wall,” presenting their third fiction feature, “Mather/Papan”; and homegrown talent Aida Begić, known for her Cannes Un Certain Regard prizewinner “Children of Sarajevo,” who will pitch her latest feature, “Air in a Bottle.”

Those titles are among the 13 projects in development that will take part in the co-production market. The loaded works-in-progress selection, meanwhile, includes new features from Alisa Kovalenko, who was in competition in Sarajevo last year with her Berlinale premiere “We Will Not Fade Away”; Adrian Sitaru, named best director at Locarno with “Best Intentions”; Tarik Aktas, who took best emerging director at Locarno with “Dead Horse Nebula”; Ralitza Petrova, winner of the Golden Leopard for best film at Locarno with “Godless“; Maya Vitkova, who competed at Sundance with “Viktoria”; and Ana Urushadze, who took best first feature at Locarno for “Scary Mother.” (Urushadze’s new feature, “Supporting Role,” is pictured above.)

Among the prizes up for grabs is the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award in the amount of €20,000 ($21,900), as well as the CineLink Impact Award, introduced last year, which also offers €20,000 ($21,900) in in-kind consultation services to support the development of an impact campaign around a film’s release. There’s also the CineLink Female Voices Award, which was created in 2022 to amplify female filmmakers from the region, with the prize money doubling this year, again to €20,000 ($21,900).

The CineLink Talks program, meanwhile, boasts a packed slate of masterclasses, debates and panel discussions featuring key players representing both the regional and global film industries. Conversations will focus on the growing influence of A.I. on film production, the possibilities and challenges for a sustainable film industry, and the question of how to turn popular I.P. from Southeast Europe into a global phenomenon.

With other sessions focused on creating safe spaces and improving representation and access in the global market, Marković says “responsibility” is the focal point of this year’s event, highlighting efforts “to make the industry a safer and more inclusive environment.”

Such messaging dovetails with the broader aim to make both CineLink and the Sarajevo Film Festival a welcome space for all. It is perhaps one reason why the dual events have developed a loyal and passionate community of filmmakers among the region’s talents, many of whom have grown with the festival, presented projects in the co-production market and later walked the red carpet outside the National Theater for their festival premieres. For newcomers and established talents alike, Sarajevo feels like home.

“This is the essential thing for us — to balance between the people who have the trust, because they have co-produced their projects with us, with the filmmakers and producers that are just entering the arena, so that they have a feeling of support coming from us,” says Marković. “The balance that we strike is essential, so that we could serve both newcomers and very established filmmakers from across the region.”

The Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 16 – 23.