Sarajevo Film Festival (B&H), Zagreb Film Festival (Croatia), Auteur Film Festival (Serbia) and Montenegro Film Festival (Montenegro) co-create a unique new festival experience

 Organized at the initiative of the Sarajevo Film Festival, the first nine-day online festival will gather four leading film festivals from four counties speaking the same language: Sarajevo Film Festival (B&H), Zagreb Film Festival (Croatia), Auteur Film Festival (Serbia) and Montenegro Film Festival (Montenegro).

 The first regional film festival is held as part of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region. Held 9^th – 17^thApril, 2021 at VOD platform ondemand.kinomeetingpoint.ba, it will showcase films selected by festival programmers of all four festivals. The event will also mark the spring edition for all four festivals.      

 “Today, when the need to connect is stronger than ever, we are fortunate to have banded together for the first regonal film festival, as part of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region. Festivals are meeting points, places of gathering and sharing. During these difficult times, these are vital features for reviving social capital, re-examining the existing models of film production and for shaping our joint future. Festivals are places that allow us a chance to decide together the direction we want to take in the future and to demonstrate that we are all part of one whole – a film community. Together we have created a special new experience of a regional film festival,” said the joint statement of the Sarajevo Film Festival Sarajevo Film Festival, Zagreb Film Festival, Auteur Film Festival and Montenegro Film Festival representatives.

 The first edition of the regional film festival offers a program consisting of films the audience rarely has a chance to see, including Yugoslav classics, authors’ debut films, multi-award-winning titles and the most interesting European and world films. The audience will also be able to watch interviews with some of the authors in the film program.   

 The spring edition of the festival as part of the Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region marks the beginning of a collaboration and joint effort, while this year’s edition of each of the festivals will also showcase new, joint film programs.   

 The crisis in the film industry caused by Covid-19 requires us to think outside the box. These key festivals located in the same linguistic region are of different sizes and profiles, but they all share a common mission – to be a platform for the promotion and presentation of European audiovisual content and talent. A partnership between the four festivals will support audience retention and development, organizational advancement and realization of the festival aided by latest technologies.  

 “We invite the audience to to meet new and unique cinematic voices, rediscover film classics and together, in pandemic times and with the help of cinematic art, work on restoring a sense of unity and closeness!“

 Welcome to the Spring Edition of Zagreb Film Festival, held 9^th – 17^th April, 2021 at ondemand.kinomeetingpoint.ba!

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 About the festivals

Sarajevo Film Festival
Towards the end of the four-year siege of Sarajevo, in 1995, Obala Art Centar initiated the Sarajevo Film Festival with the aim of helping to reconstruct civil society and retain the cosmopolitan spirit of the city. Today, more than two decades later, the Sarajevo Film Festival is a leading international film festival with a special focus on the region of South-Eastern Europe (Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey), shining an international spotlight on films, talent and future projects from the region. The Sarajevo Film Festival also serves as a joint platform for film professionals in the entire region, setting high standards in festival organization, film promotion and presentation in South-Eastern Europe.

 Zagreb Film Festival
Zagreb Film Festival is one of the central and most visited cultural events and the largest international film festival in Croatia. Held every November in Zagreb, it presents the best of recent independent international and domestic film production. Since its beginning, ZFF is oriented towards discovering and promoting contemporary independent film and debut works by directors from around the world. By organizing the festival for nearly two decades, later establishing a distribution platform and screening films which are often not found in multiplex theatres, ZFF has played a crucial role in bringing up generations of audiences who enjoy film art.

 Festival autorskog filma Beograd (FAF)
Auteur Film Festival (FAF) was founded in 1994 with a desire to present to the domestic audience the best contemporary artistic film accomplishments. The films showcased at the festival are different from most films on the regular film program – they aim not merely to entertain, but to search for deeper, more realistic and more complex vision of the world we live in and of the people we are. The number of visitors increases each year, demonstrating the need and importance of having events of this nature. This legendary festival of auteur film offers a programme of films awarded at world film festivals, new works by directors well known and appreciated by the festival audience, as well as interesting films exhibiting new trends in auteur film. Every year the festival hosts a significant number of acclaimed filmmakers who take part in the programme, but also hold workshops with students.  

 Herceg Novi Film Festival
Montenegro Film Festival is the most significant film festival in Montenegro with a tradition spanning more than three decades. Its international program focuses on competition selections of regional feature films, documentaries and student films. The non-competing program of Kino Evropa includes recent works by acclaimed European filmmakers. The main goal of the festival is to promote regional and world cinema, especially by creating a space for filmmakers and films that nurture a special artistic impression, bold view of social reality, film language and production, focusing on presenting a cross-section of modern poetics and expressions.