Sarajevo Film Festival: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Sarajevo Film Festival is the premier film festival in the Balkans. It was founded in 1995 and brings international and local celebrities to Sarajevo every year. It is held in August and shows feature and short films. The current director is Mirsad Purivatra. 2004 will be the ten-year anniversary of the film festival. The winner of the Sarajevo Film Festival receives a €15,000 grand prize, and the recipient of the Best Short Film award gets €2000 winnings.

History

The first Sarajevo Film Festival was held from October 25 to November 5 1995. At that time, the siege of Sarajevo was still going on, and projections were very low. However, a surprising 15,000 people came to see the films, of which there were 37 from 15 different countries. The Festival grew at a remarkable pace, attracting tens of thousands of people a year, as well as foreign celebreties such as U2's Bono, and Willem Dafoe. By 2001, the European Film Association made the Sarajevo Film Festival one of the 11 Festivals that could nominate a film for the award of "Europe's Best Short Film". In 2002, the Festival's choice of local Ahmed Imamovic's "10 Minuta" went on to win it all. The 2001's winner of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Danis Tanović's "No Man's Land" went on to win an Oscar in the US.

• Children's Program
• New Currents
• New Currents shorts
• Open Air
• Panorama
• Panorama Documentaries
• Regional Program (feature, short documentary

• Best Film
  • 1996 "Breaking the Waves" - Lars von Triera
  • 1997 "Me Vie En Rose" - Alain Berliner
  • 1998 "Seul Contre Tous" - Gaspar Noe
  • 1999 "December 1-31" - Jan Peters
  • 2000 "Topsy Turvy" - Mike Leigh, "A One And a Two" - Edward Yang
  • 2001 "No Man's Land" - Danis Tanović
  • 2002 "Sabado" - Juana Villeges
  • 2003 "Gori Vatra" - Pjer Žalica

• Honorable Mention
  • 1996 "Trees Lounge" - Steve Buschemy, "Drifting Clouds" - Aki Kaurismaki
  • 1997 "???" - ???
  • 1998 "Made in Bosnia" - various filmmakers
  • 1999 "Adrian" - Mia Weiss
  • 2000 "Set Me Free" - Lee Pool, "The Terrorist" - Santosh Sivana
  • 2001 "Monsieur William, Les Traces D'Une Vie Possible" - Denis Gaubert
  • 2002 ???
  • 2003 ""Rezervni Deli" - Damjan Kozole, "Mali Svet" - Milos Radović

• Public Award
  • 1998 "Remonieur des Lilas" - Cedric Klapisch
  • 1999 "Models" - Ulrich Seidl
  • 2000 "The Junction" - Ursula Urbani
  • 2001 ???
  • 2002 "Lilo & Stitch" - Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders
  • 2003 ???

• Best Short Film
  • 2001 "Copy Shop" - Virgil Widrich
  • 2002 "10 Minuta" - Ahmed Imamović
  • 2003 "Le Portefeuille" - Vincent Bierrewaerts

• Bono
• Steve Buscemi
• Leos Carax
• Kaitlin Cartlidge
• Alfonso Cuaron
• Willem Dafoe
• Stephen Fears
• Mike Leigh
• John Malkovich
• Marco Mueller
• Peter Mullan
• Vanessa Redgrave
• Susan Sontag
• Danis Tanović