Competition Programme – Documentary Film Announced

"The Documentary Competition Program reaches this year an important landmark, celebrating its ten year’s anniversary. We started in 2003 modestly with only few slots and have introduced a year later a special award for the best film treating human rights issues. In 2006, we expanded our competition and introduced two more important awards, the official SFF Heart of Sarajevo and a Special EDN Talent Grant award. Looking back over the last decade, it becomes evident that regional documentaries have been and still are impregnated with a special importance that surpasses mere cinematic expression; they are a sophisticated voice in the national and regional search for identity, clearly recording the pulse of society, dissecting the social structures and benchmarking the levels of democracy."

Rada Šešić,
Selector
(Read more here!)

WORLD PREMIERES


BORIS WITH AN I / BORIS SA I 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2012, DVD, Colour, 30 min.
Director and screenplay: Vesna Marić

Boris Ciković, born in Sarajevo, in 1991, leaves the city with his mother in May 1992 fleeing the heavy shelling. The father joins his wife and son in Croatia two years later, and the three of them move to Toronto, Canada. They wish to start a new life in peace, away from the war which turned them into refugees. Life went on until Boris turned 17, when he was killed in “a peaceful, safe part” of Toronto. He was killed by a minor hooligan in an attempt of robbery. A life was lost because of a 5-dollar-worth rucksack and a cell phone. The grieving parents returned Boris’ urn to Sarajevo. In Toronto, together with a local MP, they are fighting to strengthen measures of conditional release for offenders convicted of murder.


BOY, BLOODBROTHER OF DEATH 2 /
FANT, POBRATIM SMRTI 2
Slovenia, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 51min.
Director: Maja Weiss
Screenplay: Gorazd Perko, Maja Weiss

Chernobyl 25 years later… What has been happening since the first nuclear cataclysm, while another one is pending? Where have all the international relief funds disappeared and where are the millions, intended for the reconstruction of the decaying sarcophagus? Where is my life taking me? What legacy am I leaving to my son… These are just some of the questions that the little boy from Chernobyl Anatoliy Rizhov - Tolya, now a grown-up, is trying to answer 20 years after the first documentary about him was made. The film BOY, BLOOD-BROTHER OF DEATH 2 is a sequel to the refined story about Tolya and his family trying to live and survive with radiation in a small Ukranian village not far from the largest memorial in nuclear history - from Chernobyl. This is an intimate story about a boy trying to escape its destiny. Will he make it? Have we learnt anything in the past 20 years? Will the human race manage to avoid new nuclear cataclysms? Judging by the facts nothing good awaits us... We are announcing red alert!


ČEDO
Croatia, 2012, DigiBeta, 52 min.
Director and screenplay: Nikola Strašek

This is a documentary about the 45-year-old Čedo Šaraba, a man from the margins of the society the likes of which we see on the streets, in the parks and in trams every day collecting plastic bottles and scrounging for change. Čedo is homeless, alcoholic and a drug addict, with no legal income, and comes from a mixed marriage – he was born to a Croatian mother and a Montenegrin father – and that, along with the “misfortunately chosen” name, has largely determined his life. His father died in a bizarre accident – he hit a post while jumping out of a train. Čedo was a diagnosed alcoholic at the age of 16, and he became a heroin addict after the death of his mother. He has been imprisoned more than 25 times. Still, ČEDO is a film of a highly intelligent, sensible and misfortunate man.


EXHIBITION / IZLOŽBA
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2012, Mini DV, Colour, 33 min.
Director and sreenplay: Boro Kontić

An exhibition of photographs by Milomir Kovačević – Strašni opened in Sarajevo on February 29 2012. The photographs were shot in Sarajevo between April 1986 and May 1992. That was a time of political turmoil and social change that eventually led to war and the siege of Sarajevo. The photographs mainly depict people during peace protests and events held in an effort to stop the war. This documentary is reminiscence through photographs and memories of that time 20 years ago, and it shows how the sites from those images and the people look today. The author shows the preparation and the setting up of the exhibition, he searches for some of the individuals from the photographs, and records the closing of the exhibition. 



REAL MAN'S FILM / MUŠKI FILM
Croatia, 2012, DigiBeta, Colour, 11 min.
Director and screenplay: Nebojša Slijepčević

The situation on the ground is serious: there are rifles and pistols in every hand. Concentration of arms has reached a critical point. Even the smallest incident would be disastrous to this fragile peace! Just one nervous finger on the trigger could start off unstoppable chaos...


THE ROLE OF MY LIFE / ŽIVOTNA ULOGA
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2012, DVD, Colour, 70 min.
Director and screenplay: Nađa Mehmedbašić

The story begins in Sarajevo, in 1991, at the brink of war in BiH, when a young talented actor Nermin Tulić played the lead role in a theatre play “Bašeskija, san o Sarajevu”. The play was performed for only one season as the aggression against BiH started and the besieged Sarajevo was subjected to everyday shelling. This true story of actor Nermin Tulić, to whom fate had given a difficult role in real life, unfolded during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, this is a story transcending time and space; it stands as unique testimony of human courage, of endless beauty and strength of love upon which life itself depends.  


TWO FURNACES FOR UDARNIK JOSIP TROJKO /
DVIJE PEĆI ZA UDARNIKA JOSIPA TROJKA
Croatia, 2012, 16 mm, Colour and b&w, 32 min.
Director and screenplay: Goran Dević

Two Furnaces for Udarnik Josip Trojko shows the remains of what used to be a large iron industry, follows the disassembling and cutting into pieces a famous Siemens-Martin furnace which used to be the heart of former forge. In that furnace, the workers beat the world record several times in producing steel. Sons of those workers, with unhidden emotions, are slowly destroying the furnace, cramming it into a goods van which leaves the forge.

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERES


THE BIG DAY / VELIKI DAN
Croatia, 2012, DigiBeta, Colour, 53 min.
Director and screenplay: Đuro Gavran

Wedding is a special day in a man’s life. Detailed and extensive preparations are needed in order for the big day to be just as the bride and the groom had imagined it. The film is about everything a couple is ready to do, the price they pay for it and the wishes they will never accept to compromise on when it comes to their own wedding. As the couples’ wishes develop, so does the market fulfilling them. This is a film about people who turn their wedding day into the Big Day.


THE FACE OF A REVOLUTION / LICE REVOLUCIJE
Serbia, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 53 min.
Director and screenplay: Vladimir Milovanović

Branko Ilić was one of the leaders of the uprising against Milošević’s regime in Serbia in 1998-2000 and the leader of the student resistance movement Otpor. He was arrested and beaten several dozens of times, and received the MTV “Free Your Mind” award on behalf of Otpor in 2000. Exactly ten years after the October 5th Revolution, Branko returned to Belgrade from voluntary asylum in his birthplace Arilje. He starts working as a bartender and moves in temporarily with Švabo, an old friend from the protest era. At the same time, a well-known advertising agency where Švabo works is hastily preparing a big campaign for promoting consumer loans.


FAMILY MEALS / NIJE TI ŽIVOT PJESMA HAVAJA
Croatia, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 50 min.
Director and screenplay: Dana Budisavljević

Remember the last time you talked to your parents? What did you talk about? Did you go a step further than talking about the weather and daily politics? A family of four assembles after five years for a birthday party. They start wondering why they’ve turned their backs on one another… Can discussing buried family secrets help them overcome embitterment? Can a birthday cake gone wrong help them overcome the past? Through rituals of family meals, the film talks about the importance of feeling accepted by the ones we love.


I LOVE YOU / ICH LIEBE DICH
Turkey, Germany, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 74 min.
Director and screenplay: Emine Emel Balci

Many women in the villages of Şanlıurfa, whose husbands or fiancés have emigrated to Germany to work, had to learn basic German in accordance with the new German legislation on unification of families. Women who gathered in village schools, following a few months of language courses and an exam, were supposed to apply for a visa and consequently gain right to family unification. However, many of them did not sufficiently know their destination country or husbands very well. While they had not even graduated from elementary school, having quit upon family pressure, the school was a place they would claim “lost on the road.” As such, baffled between Turkish, German and their mother tongue, Kurdish, these women hit an ambiguous road.


L.E.F.
Croatia, 2012, DigiBeta, Colour, 9 min.
Director and screenplay: Goran Trbuljak

Liberté, égalite, fraternité. Has the time come to replace these words with some other, or has the time come for us to change? In less than ten minutes and in his sharp, critical and pungent way, Goran Trbuljak deals with some of the most important problems of the modern world: its internal structure, (un)fairness and relation to the ideals of the French Revolution which all of us still invoke, even only declaratively. The film consists of several scenes, shot in various cities and on various continents, always showing the same: garbage containers and people digging out food scraps from them. Container covers slide open and closed and each of them hides one of the three words of the well-known 'triptych': 'Liberté, égalite, fraternité'. The author asks the question: Has the moment come to replace these words with some other, or has the moment come for us to change?



THE LONG VACATION / DOLGE POČITNICE
Slovenia, 2012, DCP, Colour and b&w, 80 min.
Director and screenplay: Damjan Kozole

Thirteen year-old Alex went on vacation to Serbia. For four years, he was unable to return home to the country where he was born. He stayed on "vacation" for twenty years. Nisveta arrived from Bosnia thirty years ago. After the independence, she gave birth to a daughter who did not officially exist for the first two years of her life.  When she was a teenager, Katarina lost her parents, her flat, and her documents… Three stories of young people whom the state of Slovenia erased from all records in February 1992, just over half a year after it gained independence. They became the so-called "erased". So did approximately 20.000 others.


SECRETS AND DOUBTS / SUMNJE I TAJNE
Serbia, 2011, Beta Sp, Colour, 14 min.
Director and screenplay: Želimir Gvardiol

Abandoned old people, alone and angry with their closest relatives, agree on risky legal action and often end up in trouble. Immoral people holding high positions in the state often misuse old people in troubled situations. Even when the court steps in, it is not always possible to comprehend what had really happened. Old people uncritically believe to be right, and get disappointed and lose faith in high ranking civil servants. Conflict and misunderstanding between the older generation and their children leave room for dishonest judges who propose – “always according to conscience” – the old people to buy their real estate. Cunning in legal matters, judges can easily manipulate and fit everything into lawful schemes, so it is very difficult, and almost impossible, to correct the failures and reveal the frauds. Such events mainly remain a mystery and for ever cast doubt over what had really happened. Who and how is protecting old people from themselves? Who can and who may become the judge in a state?

REGIONAL PREMIERES


24 BUCKETS, 7 MICE, 18 YEARS /
24 GĂLEŢI, 7 ŞOARECI, 18 ANI
Romania, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 39 min.
Director and screenplay: Marius Iacob

A unique way of life repeating itself every day, slowly transformed Imre and Piroska in some museum exhibits.  In a quiet and isolated world we meet a couple whose existence begins to depend on the interaction with a different world and the absurd within. Their line of work turned them into a sort of local attraction, and vacationing foreigners are brought to see “the bears” and photograph themselves with them. Their life stands still, like in a museum diorama, from which they are trying to break through.


THE BOY WHO WAS A KING
Bulgaria, Germany, 2011, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour and b&w, 90 min.
Director and screenplay: Andrey Paounov

Past haunts present, fact meets fiction and myth rivals reality to tell the fascinating story of Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, from his exile as a boy-king through his glorious return as a republican politician to his fall from grace in one of the greatest experiments of democracy today.


GERMAN UNITY @ BALATON /
NÉMET EGYSÉG @ BALATONNÁL
Hungary, 2011, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 79 min.
Director and screenplay: Péter Forgács

A reconstruction composed from amateur films, interviews, photographs, music, and documents from German Stasi and Hungarian Internal Ministry files, incorporating fictional elements.


MAMA ILLEGAL
Austria, 2011, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 94 min.
Director and screenplay: Ed Moschitz

They gave the smugglers all their money and risked their life on their journey across borders: three women from a small town in Moldavia, living now in Austria as cleaning women. On top of their hard job, they live a life in illegality without documents, far away from their children and family for years.


MUSTAFA'S SWEET DREAMS
Greece, United Kingdom, Turkey, 2012, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 83 min.
Director and screenplay: Angelos Abazoglou

In the small Turkish town of Gaziantep, 16-year-old Mustafa wants to become a master in the art of making baklava. Amidst the strict training regime, Mustafa dreams of a life beyond the confines of the expectations of his friends and family in a documentary that is both moving and innovative.


SOFIA'S LAST AMBULANCE /
POSLJEDNJA AMBULANTNA KOLA U SOFIJI
Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, 2012, DCP, Colour, 75 min.
Director and screenplay: Ilian Metev

In a city where 13 ambulances struggle to serve 2 million people, Krassi, Mila and Plamen are our unlikely heroes: chain-smoking, filled with humour and relentlessly saving lives against all odds. Yet, the strain of a broken system is taking its toll. How long can they keep on fixing society's injured until they lose their empathy?


TRAINS OF THOUGHTS
Austria, 2011, DCP, Colour, 84 min.
Director and screenplay: Timo Novotny

The train of thought, stream of thought or chain of thought refers to the interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought, as well as to the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to another.  TRAINS OF THOUGHTS  is an audio-visual essay, which reflects upon and compares metro-systems around the world. It is an exploration of a world inside the world as well as the feelings - fascination, obsession, fear, and themes - of survival, control and silence - that revolve it.


TURN OFF THE LIGHTS
Romania, 2011, HD CAM (HDTV), Colour, 71 min.
Director: Ivana Mladenović
Screenplay: Ivana Mladenović, Bianca Oana

After years behind bars, three young Roma men are released from prison. Bidding an emotional farewell to their fellow inmates, they exit to find their rejoicing families celebrating their homecoming with showers of tears, money, and dancing. Though the men accept the adoration with numbed excitement, they are unaccustomed to the expectations of existence on the outside and, consequently, begin to rediscover lives of aggression and arrogance. Among them is Alex, a captivating figure who charismatically addresses his past with a disturbingly blasé attitude toward violence, women, and guilt. Convicted of murdering his girlfriend – his misogynistic persona seemingly unaffected by years of incarceration – Alex  drives Ivana Mladenovic's compelling documentary.