If you're not looking into the future, you're standing in place. No matter if we're ready to admit it or not, moving is of highest importance for life. This is one of the reasons why Association of Filmmakers of Bosnia and Herzegovina organizes Student Film Competition. If we offer the place for young authors to show their films and incentive of a possible recognition, maybe we manage to make that constant movement that will help us grow both as people and as cinematography.
For years both film professionals and the audience claimed that in such a dense schedule at Sarajevo Film Festival it is almost impossible to manage to see the films in Student Programme. This year that shouldn’t be a problem, as you can see all the films until August 22nd at ondemand.sff.ba.
And what is in the programme, exactly? This year in BH Program – Student Film, you’ll be able to see 14 short films: 4 fiction, 8 documentaries and 2 animated.
As so many years before, documentary film selection is proving to be the most interesting one. Of 8 films 6 to 24 minutes long, 4 are confessionals and offer you the possibility to get to know the young people who will be important part of Bosnian and Herzegovinian and Regional cinematography.
THE CITY THAT I HATE by Gabrijel Lazić is the only one of those four films that didn’t get into the selection of Competition Programme – Student Film. This film, through authors questioning of himself and talk with three women who also moved to Sarajevo, raises the question of what kind of city is he stuck in and if the misery he is feeling is really stemming from the dirty and a bit worn out city or it has more to do with demons he broth with himself.
MY DAD, THE CLOWN by Sare Ristić goes one step further combining director’s confession with outside view of her life and relationship with her father. Her discovery of the man hiding behind the clown becomes a metaphor for child-parent relationship that in so many cases for some reason develops very slowly.
THE ROOTS by Stefan Tomić, deals with family relations, too, but at the moment when it’s already too late for that. This poetic documentary combines confession with empty spaces left behind those who left us for good.
B4 by Alen Šimić goes the furthest in this. Although, the film deals with his family tragedy and is a confession in a way, author decides to step back a bit and listen about his own story together with the audience. Noise in his ears that builds up while he is trying to deal with his trauma slowly takes us in, too, making us participants in his sorrow, but in his healing process, too.
Karmen Obrdalj moves away from her personal story in the film WHY IS MOM ALWAYS CRYING? so she can follow Ena in her pursuit to understand childhood war experience through her parents’ letters and place where she used to live.
Collection of documentary is completed with three more stories about lives of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina: BETWEEN EAST AND WEST by Boško Krljaš follows the story of Syrian refugee; PLEHAN by Luka Vlaho is about a man who returns to an abandoned village; and VENO by Re Memić about ways in which war invalid deals with everyday challenges.
In fiction films, authors decide to question the state of society we live in through the stories about opportunism and revenge in SCARS by Almir Zoletić, decay of the family in THE ABYSS by Katarina Krstić and impossibility of inter-generational communication in ARRIVAL by Amina Huseinčehajić. In TWO FIGURES AT A RIVER Lukas Grevis moves away from the problems of contemporary society so he can deal with friendship lasting for decades.
Both animated films, once again arriving from Academy of Arts in Banja Luka, deal with desire. Nemanja Vučenović questions the moment when we start desiring something and how that changes our life in WITH THE SAHPE and Igor Äurić in THRALL, one more film that has been selected for Competition Program – Student Film, offers an answer on what happens when our desires are met too easily.
From confessions, over research, and all the way to absolute imagination, BH Program – Student Film offers you multiples subjects that might interest you. Pick a film for yourself and enjoy.