News
CineLink Industry Days announces selection for Work in Progress 2025
Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Work in Progress showcases the most compelling new features emerging from Southeast Europe and the MENA region.
The selection includes 11 new feature-length films: 8 fiction and 3 documentaries which will be presented to international high-profile industry professionals (funders, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters and festival programmers) with the aim of assisting their completion and enhancing their distribution possibilities.
The selection encompasses a broad stylistic and genre spectrum, and narratives that are both deeply personal and socially resonant. Many of the selected works explore the complexities of human nature and the fragility of social consensus, and the tensions between collective expectations and personal anxieties. What unites these films is a shared sensitivity to the nuances of human relationships, between generations, individuals, and communities. At their core lies a strong drive to understand the other, affirm dignity, and explore the resilience of individuals and communities in the face of violence and inequality. Together, these films promise an exciting and thought-provoking year ahead, with stories that resonate across a broad and diverse audience. As the region’s stories become more complex, our partners step forward with equally ambitious backing, and we are thankful for their unwavering support.
This edition deepens CineLink’s partner ecosystem, matching ambitious regional filmmaking with robust finishing, financing and impact resources:
Newly introduced awards in 2025
HBO Award - €30 000 cash
The selection encompasses a broad stylistic and genre spectrum, and narratives that are both deeply personal and socially resonant. Many of the selected works explore the complexities of human nature and the fragility of social consensus, and the tensions between collective expectations and personal anxieties. What unites these films is a shared sensitivity to the nuances of human relationships, between generations, individuals, and communities. At their core lies a strong drive to understand the other, affirm dignity, and explore the resilience of individuals and communities in the face of violence and inequality. Together, these films promise an exciting and thought-provoking year ahead, with stories that resonate across a broad and diverse audience. As the region’s stories become more complex, our partners step forward with equally ambitious backing, and we are thankful for their unwavering support.
This edition deepens CineLink’s partner ecosystem, matching ambitious regional filmmaking with robust finishing, financing and impact resources:
Newly introduced awards in 2025
HBO Award - €30 000 cash
A direct license across 15 HBO territories in Central and Southeast Europe, providing completion funding and a guaranteed broadcast window. The winning project will have the opportunity to be aired on the linear HBO channel and included in the high-quality content library of the HBO Max streaming platform, helping it reach a broad international audience and positioning it among compelling storytelling.
Avanpost Media Award - €30 000 in‑kind
Avanpost Media Award - €30 000 in‑kind
Added to Work in Progress this year. Together with Avanpost’s ongoing €20 000 support for Docu Rough Cut Boutique, the company now invests €50 000 annually across CineLink’s finishing platforms offering post-production services.
Returning awards from long‑standing partners
TRT Award - €10 000 cash
A long‑standing collaboration with Turkish Radio Television. The amount is transferred to the production company by the Festival and formalised as a licence agreement for TV rights within Türkiye.
Post Republic Award - €30 000 in‑kind
Covers colour‑grading or sound‑mix services. Berlin‑based Post Republic was among the very first supporters of CineLink Work in Progress and remains a cornerstone of the platform’s success.
Projects from both Work in Progress and Docu Rough Cut Boutique also compete for the CineLink Impact Award, a €20 000 impact‑campaign grant presented by Think‑Film Impact Production.
Projects from both Work in Progress and Docu Rough Cut Boutique also compete for the CineLink Impact Award, a €20 000 impact‑campaign grant presented by Think‑Film Impact Production.
CINELINK WORK IN PROGRESS SELECTION
17
17
(fiction)
Director: Kosara Mitić
Producer: Tomi Salkovski
Production Company: Black Cat Production
Coproduction Companies: Art&Popcorn, December
Countries: North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia
After having threesome with her classmates, Sara (17) gets pregnant and tries to hide it from everyone, which becomes especially difficult during the graduation excursion.
ALKEBULAN
ALKEBULAN
(fiction/documentary)
Director: Yassine Marco Marroccu
Producer: Andrea Taschler
Production Companies: Mirage Film
Co-production Company: Eclipse Films
Countries: Morocco, Hungary, Qatar
An odyssey to rescue a sacred amulet from a ship wrecked at the coastline of the Atlantic Sahara during the turbulent wake of African independence.
BLUE BIRD
BLUE BIRD
(fiction)
Director: Ahmet Sönmez
Producer: Ahmet Sönmez
Production Company: MovieTime Production
Country: Türkiye
In 1950s Türkiye, a crumbling blue bus (Blue Bird) carries strangers from a forgotten town to the train station, unveiling quiet sorrows, hidden pasts and difference between reality and truth.
EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH YOU
EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH YOU
(fiction)
Director: Urša Menart
Producers: Katja Lenarčič, Danijel Hočevar
Production Company: Vertigo Ljubljana
Co-production Companies: Chromosom Film, Living Pictures
Countries: Slovenia, Germany, Serbia
Maruša connects with Alja online, who works abroad as a nurse. They bond immediately. When Alja falls ill, Maruša travels to Germany to help, only to discover that not everything is as it seems.
THE FORBIDDEN AUNT
THE FORBIDDEN AUNT
(documentary)
Director: Bojana Novaković
Producer: Bojana Novaković, Sonja Božić, Milan Stojanović
Production Company: Sense Production
Country: Serbia
Bojana Novaković films a documentary about her mysterious aunt in rural Serbia, uncovering family secrets & confronting her own past in a darkly comedic, multi-generational portrait of women and trauma.
LOOPING
Bojana Novaković films a documentary about her mysterious aunt in rural Serbia, uncovering family secrets & confronting her own past in a darkly comedic, multi-generational portrait of women and trauma.
LOOPING
(fiction)
Director: Antonio Nuić
Producers: Lana Matić, Boris T. Matić
Production Company: Propeler Film
Co-production Company: Moses Film
Countries: Croatia, Türkiye
A man adrift in time and space returns nightly to the same bar, trapped in grief, memory, and habit.
MONUMENT
MONUMENT
(fiction)
Director: Bojan Bodružić
Producers: Bojan Bodružić, Igor Drljača, Adis Đapo, Amra Bakšić Čamo
Production Companies: SCCA/pro.ba, Japanese Polka Dancing Films
Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada
A music professor returns to Istria to bury his grandfather, sparking a reunion with wartime friends and a confrontation with buried traumas, lost love, and family ties to WWII.
SILENCE IS THE ENEMY OF THE SEA
SILENCE IS THE ENEMY OF THE SEA
(experimental / documentary)
Directors: Evgeny Rodin, Dina Karaman
Directors: Evgeny Rodin, Dina Karaman
Producers: Vladimir Nadein, Anton Kurilchik, Mina Seyid-Mammadova, Evgeny Rodin
Production Companies: Dénapá
Co-production Company: Jol Filmproduktion, Mandarin Production
Countries: France, Azerbaijan, Austria
Nothing but the sea is visible from the barred windows of a large house. The inhabitants are lulled by marine songs broadcast day and night, so they never notice their confinement.
WHERE TO?
WHERE TO?
(fiction)
Director: Assaf Machnes
Director: Assaf Machnes
Producer: Tomer Mecklberg, Haim Mecklberg, Oren Rogovin, Mohamad Babi
Production Company: 2 Team Productions
Co-Production Companies: Lev Cinema, Rogovin Brothers, Iconoclast Germany
Country: Israel, Germany
Logline: The different taxi rides across the city of Berlin between Hassan, a middle aged Palestinian Uber driver, and young Israeli who gets lost in the city, tell a tragic-comic story about moving forward.
WHO ARE WE
(fiction)
Director: Miroslav Terzić
Director: Miroslav Terzić
Producer: Snežana van Houwelingen
Production Company: This and That Productions
Co-Production Companies: Nightswim, Invictus, PTD, Kinorama
Countries: Serbia, Italy, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Croatia
After a pupil’s suicide, a school trip exposes the haunting path to tragedy. As the journey unfolds, the bullies are the same, the victims are new, and the shadow of the dead pupil looms over them all.
YESTERDAY THE EYE DIDN’T SLEEP
YESTERDAY THE EYE DIDN’T SLEEP
(fiction)
Director: Rakan Mayasi
Director: Rakan Mayasi
Producer: Jennifer Ritter, Rakan Mayasi
Production Company: Atata
Countries: Belgium, Palestine, Lebanon
In a valley veiled by fog and tribal codes, two sisters walk into the night not as daughters, but as offerings — where blood, memory, and silence attempt to keep the fire from spreading.
The 31st Sarajevo Film Festival will be held from the 15th to the 22nd of August 2025.
The 31st Sarajevo Film Festival will be held from the 15th to the 22nd of August 2025.