Ilya Khrzhanovskiy in Focus for the “Tribute to” Programme at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival

Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, a prominent film director, artist, and producer, will be a special guest at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival. As part of the Tribute to programme, a retrospective of his selected films will be screened.

 

His debut feature film 4 from 2005 won numerous international awards, including the Golden Cactus and the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, as well as Best Director awards in Buenos Aires and Athens. The film was screened at over 50 festivals and distributed worldwide.

 

Since 2006, he has been working on his second major project, DAU, a multidisciplinary endeavor at the intersection of film, art, and anthropology. DAU is the largest co-production with significant funding and support from TV broadcasters. In 2006 DAU was selected as one of the 17 best world projects at the Atelier of the Festival de Cannes. During filming, 700 hours of footage were collected, from which 14 feature films, 3 TV series, video performances, and scientific films were created. The films premiered in Paris in 2019, where an immersive experience was created with the recreation of the DAU institute at the Centre Pompidou. Many renowned artists and actors participated in the project, including Gérard Depardieu, Willem Dafoe, Marina Abramović, and Brian Eno.

 

The films DAU. Natasha and DAU. Degeneration were included in the official program of the Berlin International Film Festival in 2020. DAU. Natasha won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to Cinematography, and DAU. Degeneration was highly acclaimed by international critics. Both films also won other awards at festivals worldwide.

 

Since 2020, Ilya Khrzhanovskiy has been the artistic director of the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, Ukraine, the largest Holocaust research and memorial center in Eastern Europe. As a co-producer, he participated in the award-winning documentaries Babi Yar. Context (2021) and The Kiev Trial (2022) by Sergei Loznitsa. He actively participated in the installation of memorial installations in Babi Yar, including Mirror Field (2020), Tree (2021), and the wooden synagogue Place for Reflection (2021).

 

In 2022, Khrzhanovskiy received the Master Award at the Yerevan International Film Festival for outstanding achievement in film art. He is also a jury member at leading international film festivals. In March 2024, the Russian Ministry of Justice added him to the list of foreign agents, and in September 2024, he renounced his Russian citizenship.

 

In 2025, he co-founded “IP Filmworks” with Philippe Bober in France. He is currently working on new media and art projects, exploring new forms in contemporary art and cinematography.

 

The 31st Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from August 15 to 22, 2025.

Previous Honourees of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s “Tribute to” Programme include:
Elia Suleiman (2024), Jessica Hausner (2023), Sergei Loznitsa (2022), Wim Wenders (2021), Michel Franco (2020), Paweł Pawlikowski (2019), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2018), Joshua Oppenheimer, Oliver Stone (2017), Amat Escalante (2016), Brillante Mendoza, Atom Egoyan (2015), Michael Winterbottom (2014), Cristi Puiu (2013), Todd Solondz (2012), Lucrecia Martel (2011), Bruno Dumont (2010), Jia Zhang-ke (2009), Todd Haynes (2008), Tsai Ming-Liang, Ulrich Seidl (2007), Abel Ferrara, Béla Tarr (2006), Alexander Payne (2005), Dušan Makavejev, Gaspar Noé (2004), Peter Mullan (2003), Stephen Frears (2002), Mike Leigh (2001), Steve Buscemi (2000).