16th Sarajevo Film Festival Presents: Competition Programme - Feature Film 2010

While presenting and promoting his new film SOCIALISM, Jean Luc Godard in one interview earlier this year said: „There is no intellectual property, there is intellectual responsibility“.

Yes, this statement raises a whole set of questions about authors’ rights, on-line distribution of films etc. (all important issues we are also dealing with through our Industry department), but for this year’s selection the other part of the sentence is more important. Somehow, the term “intellectual responsibility” could easily describe this year's Sarajevo Film Festival Competition Selection. The programme consists of nine films from very different authors; different in terms of experience, in terms of their aesthetic approach and in terms of the way they view the world. What they have in common is something very new in regional cinema: intellectual responsibility towards the film, towards the society we more or less share and towards their work, in this case film. (Read more here!)

COMPETITION PROGRAMME – FEATURE FILM 2010

WORLD PREMIERES

INSIDE AMERICA
Austria, 2010, HD CAM (HDTV), kolor, 105 min.
Director and screenplay: Barbara Eder
Cast: Raul Juarez, Aimeé Lizette Saldivar, Zuleyma Jaime, Luis De Los Santos, Carlos Benavides, Patty Barrera

H. H. High School, placed in Brownsville at the Mexican border, is a place of daily tragedies. Cocaine-addicted cheerleaders, patriotic ROTC-students, violent gangs and Mexican girls hoping to marry by the time they turn 18, collide in this story. And yet, they have a lot in common. Together they swear on the American flag, dream of white garden fences and fancy cars. But whenever they leave school, reality strikes them like an incurable disease.

JASMINA
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2010, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 90 min.
Director and screenplay: Nedžad Begović
Cast: Zijah Sokolović, Nada Đurevska, Amila Đikoli, Mediha Musliović, Mirvad Kurić, Aleksandar Seksan, Zlatan Zuhrić, Ilija Zovko

Asthmatic granny (SAFA) and her six-month baby granddaughter (JASMINA) are transferred in a humanitarian convoy from the besieged Sarajevo to a peaceful small city at the Adriatic coast. By a combination of circumstances, their first neighbour is an alcoholic (STIPE). He is constantly causing troubles and making their lives complicated. During one of her asthma attacks, having no other choices, Safa rings Stipe’s bell and hands him the baby. Stipe starts to (temporarily) take care about baby Jasmina. Safa dies at the hospital. Stipe is left alone with the baby. He’s clumsy, even funny. She becomes his only mission in life. He is not ready to give Jasmina away to anyone. Suddenly someone is at the door. Stipe recognises Jasmina’s mother. In spite of all his internal struggles, he returns Jasmina to her mother. Stipe stays alone (again).

SEVDAH FOR KARIM / SEVDAH ZA KARIMA
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Croatia, 2010, 35 mm, Colour, 95 min.
Director: Jasmin Duraković
Screenplay: Asmir Kujović, Jasmin Duraković
Cast: Amar Selimović, Marija Karan, Adnan Hasković, Mirvad Kurić, Asli Bayram, Semir Krivić, Edhem Husić, Haris Burina, Sadžida Šetić

Karim is a failed philosophy student in post-war Sarajevo. In order to provide for himself and his sister Džemila, he works in mine clearance. He has a friend Juka, a local trouble maker. They are wartime friends. There is also Ivana, Juka's girlfriend. The film begins with the three of them robbing a local mosque during Bajram festivities to have some money to party. Karim takes part despite his conscience; he is a believer. On that same evening, Juka causes an incident in the street and ends up in jail. Karim and Ivana go to a party, have a great time and end up in Juka's flat. The next day they have an all-day picnic in the mountains. Karim falls for Ivana. They return to the flat, only to find Juka there. The two friends end up in a fistfight and Karim loses. Juka abuses him and then sexually humiliates Ivana, who consents to it all. Disappointed, Karim returns to his flat in the middle of the night. And he plays sevdah on his accordion. At dawn, he goes to the mosque and then to the tekke to join the dervishes.

TILVA ROSH
Serbia, 2010, 35 mm, Colour, 100 min.
Director and screenplay: Nikola Ležaić
Cast: Marko Todorović, Stefan Đorđević, Dunja Kovačević

Bor, Serbia, once the largest copper mine, now just the biggest hole in Europe. Small union protests are going on. Toda and Stefan are the best friends, skaters, who spend their first summer after finishing high school. Stefan's going to Belgrade to the University in fall. Toda says he wouldn't apply to the University even if he had the money. They spend time shooting "Jackass-like" videos and hanging out with Dunja, who came back from France for her holidays, and get into a quiet battle for her attention. In that strange relationship of dying friendship and rivalry they try to get ahead of each other. But when the small union protest evolves into a huge riot their destructiveness will tie them together once again.

REGIONAL PREMIERES

ADRIENN PÁL
Hungary, Netherlands, Austria, France, 2010, 35 mm, Colour, 136 min.
Director: Ágnes Kocsis
Screenplay: Ágnes Kocsis, Andrea Roberti
Cast: Éva Gábor, István Znamenák, Ákos Horváth, Lia Pokorny, Izabella Hegyi

Piroska is an overweight, alienated nurse who can't resist cream-filled pastries. She works in the terminal ward of a hospital; her life is surrounded by death. One day she sets off to find her long-lost childhood friend. While tracing her recollections, she embarks on a paradox-filled voyage within her own memory and the memory of those she encounters.

BIBLIOTHEQUE PASCAL 
Hungary, Germany, Romania, United Kingdom, 2010, 35 mm, Colour, 111 min.
Director and screenplay: Szabolcs Hajdu
Cast: Orsolya Török-Illyés, Oana Pellea, Razvan Vasilescu, Andi Vasluianu, Shamgar Amram, Lujza Hajdu, Ion Sapdaru, Mihai Constantin

Mona Paparu is a Romanian citizen of Hungarian nationality. By the Black Sea she meets a runaway convict, who takes her as hostage and locks them in a bungalow of a tourist camp. They spend the night together but the next day the police surround the camp and kill Viorel while he is trying to escape. The fruit of Mona and Viorel's relationship is a baby girl whom Mona names Viorica… Mona is alone with her three-year-old daughter and she gives marionett performances to make a living. At a performance she runs into her father, Gigi Paparu, whom she has not seen in years. Paparu tells her that he is very ill and has to travel to Germany for an operation. He asks Mona to travel with him. The film is Mona Paparu's account of her trips, her love affair and her calvary in Western Europe.

TENDER SON - THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT / SZELÍD TEREMTÉS - A FRANKENSTEIN-TERV
Hungary, Germany, Austria, 2010, 35 mm, Colour, 105 min.
Director: Kornél Mundruczó
Screenplay: Kornél Mundruczó, Yvette Bíró
Cast: Rudolf Frecska, Kornél Mundruczó, Lili Monori, Kitty Csíkos

Rudi, a 17-year-old boy, returns home hoping to find his family but he is rejected. When a terrible event turns him into a hunted murderer, his only redemption may lie in the hands of his long lost father…

TUESDAY, AFTER CHRISTMAS / MARTI, DUPA CRACIUN
Romania, 2010, 35 mm, Colour, 99 min.
Director: Radu Muntean
Screenplay: Alexandru Baciu, Răzvan Rădulescu, Radu Muntean
Cast: Mimi Brănescu, Mirela Oprisor, Maria Popistasu, Sasa Paul-Szel, Dragos Bucur, Victor Rebengiuc, Dana Dembinski, Silvia Năstase, Carmen Lopăzan, Adrian Văncică, Ioana Blaj

Paul Hanganu married Adriana ten years ago. They have an eight year old daughter, Mara. For the past six months he has been involved in an extra-marital affair with Raluca, a twentyseven-year-old dentist. Paul, who is struggling to find time for Raluca, for gift shopping and for his family, decides to take his daughter to the dentist one last time before Christmas. An unexpected change in Adriana's schedule brings the two women in the same room for the first time. The meeting forces Paul to face a difficult decision.

VAVIEN
Turskey, 2009, 35 mm, color, 100 min.
Director: Yağmur & Durul Taylan
Screenplay: Engin Gűndaydin
Cast: Engin Gűndaydin, Binnur Kaya, Settar Tanriöğen, Serra Yilmaz

The latest film Taylan Brothers have directed is a noir comedy that delicately tells the story of a small town family. Engin Günaydin, who has also scripted the film, plays Celal, a despondent man, unhappily married with a child to Sevilay. He works together with his brother Cemal, at their electrical appliances shop, drowned in debt. But the worse is, he is in love with a singer who works at a sleazy night club in Samsun. Celal, thinking of saving himself with the money Sevilay has saved unbeknownst to her husband, makes a plan.