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Avant Premiere of 20th Sarajevo Film Festival

Sarajevo Film Festival is this year launching a new festival programme, Avant Premiere, as part of its Industry activities.

In co-operation with leading distribution and production companies in the region, the goal is to set up at strong market platform for films from our linguistic area. The ambition is that it, in a couple of years, Avant Premiere will be a meeting place for all film professionals in the region, and the optimal place for launching promotional activities for films with commercial box office potential in our territory, scheduled to open in the current fall/winter season. Through this, SFF wants to create an equal position and status between distribution of regional films and Hollywood and European films among exhibitors, media and audience.

The Avant Premiere concept has been met with great enthusiasm from regional film companies. It's divided in two strands - Avant Premier Trailers, intended for film professionals, and Avant Premiers, targeted at a larger audience. 

This first year, the section Avant Premiere Trailers will feature 19 new regional films (7 from Serbia, 4 from Croatia, 1 from Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina and 4 regional co-productions) that will be presented to representatives of the largest exhibitor chains and around 30 independent exhibitors from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and FYR Macedonia. The guests attending include representatives of Cinestar and Cineplexx (together controlling more than 250 cinemas in these 5 countries) as well as major distributors Blitz film&video, Continental Film, MegaCom Film and Taramount Film, and regional production companies. 

Among the films presented are titles part of this year's official SFF selection, such as CURE – THE LIFE OF ANOTHER, LOVE ISLAND, BRIDGES OF SARAJEVO and NINE POSITIONS OF LONELINESS

In the second section, Avant Premiere, regional and international film professionals,  journalists, film festival programmers and audience will have the chance to see gala pre-premieres of three films from the region which will go into wider distribution in the next couple of months: 

21st August at 12:15 p.m Multiplex Cinema City

MONUMENT TO MICHAEL JACKSON

This dark comedy from Serbia had its world premiere in the programme East of the West at this year's Karlovy Vary IFF and is represented by production company Papa films. 

This is the second feature film by Darko Lungulov, a director who , with his first movie HERE AND THERE won the award Best New York Narrative at Tribeca Film Festival in 2004. Its cast includes  Boris Milivojević, Nataša Tapusković, Toni Mihajlovski, Dragan Bjelogrlić, Mirjana Karanović and Branislav Trifunović. This film, which had its regional premiere at this year's Pula Film Festival and was met with extraordinary audience reactions, will be presented at SFF by Snježana Penev, producer, Darko Lungulov, script writer and director, and actors Nataša Tapusković, Mirjana Karanović and Branislav Trifunović.

22nd August at 12:15 p.m, Multiplex Cinema City

BARBARIANS

The second film, also from Serbia, is distributed by MegaCom Film, and is a social drama. After receiving the Special Jury Mention in the East of the West programme at Karlovy Vary IFF, this film will be presented in Sarajevo by Ivan Ikić, producer and director, Milan Stojanović, producer and actors Željko Marković and Nenad Petrović Fleš.

23rd August at 12:15 p.m, Multiplex Cinema City

NUMBER 55

On the last day of 20th SFF, this action war drama and big winner of this year's Pula Film Festival will be screened. It's a high-budget production by HRT and producers Stanko Babić and director Kristijan Milić. He won  8 „Pulska Arena“ awards for his first film ŽIVI I MRTVI, which was declared as first Croatian war film, and at this year's Pula Film Festival, received 8 „Pulska Arena“ awards again. 

Tickets for the screenings of MONUMENT TO MICHAEL JACKSON, BARBARIANS and NUMBER 55 – can be bought at the SFF Box Office at Bosanski kulturni centar or on the day of projection at Multiplex Cinema City. Since the number of tickets is limited, it is recommended to buy tickets as soon as possible.

All information and promotional materials about previously mentioned films can be found on the official SFF web page – www.sff.ba - under programme "Avant Premiere"

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