city Sarajevo: Last News

For almost four years of siege in the 1990s, the city of Sarajevo concussed from shelling, the rumblings of armored vehicles and the repeated pop of sniper fire.

Matt Damon revealed he is in the early stages of research in a documentary project tackling the war in Ukraine at the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Matt Damon revealed he was in the “early stages” on a project about Ukraine during the press conference for “Kiss the Future” at the Berlin Film Festival. Damon is a producer on the documentary which chronicles the struggle of Sarajevo citizens during the Bosnian War. World premiering in the Berlinale Special section, the politically minded documentary is directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain and based on “Fools Rush in: A Memoir” the memoir of Bill Carter, an aid worker. It shows how his determination resulted in the enlistment of the world’s largest rock band, U2, to help shine a light. Fifth Season and WME handling worldwide sales. Asked if he was considering following the footsteps of Sean Penn with “Superpower” with a film on the war in Ukraine, he said he’s “watched as everyone has with horror that unfolded there in the last year,” and although they “don’t have anything on it right now there isn’t any doubt that we’ll be doing.”

Brent Simon There’s no shortage of movies that gauzily peddle the notion of art as a balm. Few, however, are as invested in the charged immediacy of art’s relationship to real-life pain as “Kiss the Future,” a documentary enjoying its world premiere Feb. 19 in the Berlinale Special slot, with Fifth Season and WME handling worldwide sales. Directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain, and based on American-born aid worker Bill Carter’s “Fools Rush in: A Memoir” (the pair share a screen story credit), the film is a savvy mélange of history and cultural portraiture that affectingly chronicles the struggle of Sarajevo’s besieged civilians during the Bosnian War of the 1990s.

Strange as it may seem, the Oscar for Best International Feature tends to go to movies that are universal rather than geographically specific. Last year’s winner Drive My Car spoke more about mankind’s default setting to loneliness than it did about the specifics of relationship dynamics in modern Japan, just as the Danish drunks in 2021’s Another Round got hammered in a way that was relatable to boozers in every country from Albania to Zambia. Maybe the Academy feels that real life is better left to docs, but a 2015 win for the harrowing Second World War drama Son of Saul suggests that the door is always open. And after a year that saw the whole world reeling from Vladmir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, this might be one of those years that addresses the fact.

Vicky Krieps says she suffered physically for her art on the shoot of Austrian director Marie\ Kreutzer’s Corsage, revisiting the life of the legendary 19th century Empress Elisabeth of Austria with a contemporary, emancipated eye.

Bono has opened up about his marriage to wife Ali Hewson.The U2 frontman, 62, appeared at the New Yorker Festival Friday at The Society For Ethical Culture in New York City, where he spoke about his forthcoming book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, at The Society For Ethical Culture, People reported.Bono was asked by a member in the audience who said they are a newlywed, asking him for insight on how he's maintained his four-decade union with Hewson, 61. The latest: Bono, 62, has opened up about his marriage to wife Ali Hewson, as the U2 frontman, 62, appeared at the New Yorker Festival Friday at The Society For Ethical Culture in NYC The Grammy-winning rocker responded: 'It is a grand madness about us.

"The Crown" has resumed filming after the Netflix series paused production on Thursday, the day Queen Elizabeth II died at 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Elizabeth Debicki, the 32-year-old actress who portrays Princess Diana, was seen on a set in a small town near Barcelona, Spain dressed as the late princess.The scene is set during Diana’s trip to Bosnia in 1997 where she met with children and landmine victims. Debicki was seen in a pink button down, with black slacks and gold studded earrings, a spitting image of the late princess.  Elizabeth Debicki was seen on set of "The Crown," dressed as Princess Diana from 1997.

took a break in production “out of respect” for Queen Elizabeth II, but the hiatus came to an end.Following the death of the queen, writer of the Netflix show Peter Morgan told Deadline on Thursday that he expected filming would stop “out of respect” for Her Majesty.Producers confirmed to CNN that production was halted for the day Friday, Sept. 9.“As a mark of respect, filming on ‘The Crown’ was suspended today.

EXCLUSIVE: Tunisia has submitted Erige Sehiri’s bucolic coming-of-age tale Under The Fig Trees, about a group of teenagers working as fig pickers over the summer, as its entry for the best international film Oscar.

Christopher Vourlias Dubai-based sales agent Cercamon has acquired world sales rights for Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” which won three awards after its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and was named best film at Sarajevo. The Croatian director’s feature debut is the emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt that centers on a man’s struggle to save his younger brother, creating a rift in the family’s everyday life.  “Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story – a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo. “The film is reduced to the most acute, to a short time span and a clear situation that can be put in a nutshell: save the loved one,” the filmmaker said in a statement.

Naman Ramachandran The BFI London Film Festival has revealed eight titles that will be in official competition. The films include Santiago Mitre’s political drama “Argentina, 1985” (Argentina); Clement Virgo’s brotherly love tale “Brother” (Canada); Marie Kreutzer’s irreverent period drama “Corsage” (Austria-Luxembourg-Germany-France); Fyzal Boulifa’s atmospheric domestic drama “The Damned Don’t Cry” (France-Belgium-Morocco); Mark Jenkin’s folk horror tale “Enys Men” (U.K.); Hlynur Palmason’s historical epic “Godland” (Denmark-Iceland-France-Sweden); Soudade Kaadan’s poignant family film “Nezouh” (U.K.-Syria-France); and Alice Diop’s courtroom drama “Saint Omer.”

Jesse Eisenberg is taking on an unexpected role.

Marta Balaga Slovenian director Dominik Mencej will put the motorbikes aside after his 90s-set road movie “Riders,” focusing on a female protagonist next. Once again set in the past, his new project “Aberrant Bride” will revolve around an “imported” young wife from Croatia, coming into a new environment and a new family, led by her husband’s domineering mother.“It’s similar but different,” says Mencej.“There is no open road, just a forest next to the house, but it’s also about this sense of belonging. I guess I can’t figure out how to tell a story with cellphones and social media.

Marta Balaga Dina Duma’s upcoming feature “Skateboarding Is Not for Girls” turned heads at Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry section CineLink this year. The story about a Romani Muslim girl from Skopje, Adela, trying to save her sister from being sold to the bridal market and dreaming of joining a group of female skaters, received the Film Center Serbia and the Female Voices awards.

Christopher Vourlias Croatian writer-director Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” an emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt, took the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which wrapped a record-setting 2022 edition in the Bosnian capital on Friday night.The Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film was given by a jury headed by Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise (“The Great Freedom”), which included French filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (“Earwig”), Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Serbian actor Milan Marić (“Dovlatov”) and Israeli producer and consultant Katriel Schory.“Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story — a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo. Fresh off a triumphant world premiere in Locarno, where the film won three awards including best first feature, “Safe Place” was described by Variety’s Guy Lodge as a “supremely poised and moving first feature” and a “shattering” debut, “with a long trail of further festival bookings surely ahead.”Ukrainian director Maryina Er Gorbach was named best director for “Klondike,” which portrays the brutal realities of the war unfolding in Ukraine’s Donbass region through the lens of a pregnant farmstead owner whose life and home fall apart.

Eight films battled it out in competition at the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival, but Austrian director Sebastian Meise’s jury—including French director Lucile Hadžihalilović , Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Serbian actor Milan Marić and Israeli producer Katriel Schory—spread the love quite widely.

Marta Balaga Following the world premiere of “Six Weeks” at Sarajevo Film Festival, about a teenage mother who decides to give her child up for adoption, but still has some time to change her mind, director Noémi Veronika Szakonyi will continue to explore the subject in “Little Ones.” In the documentary, which she will produce, the focus will shift to the complicated workings of international adoption.“We have been working on it for eight years now; we will shoot for four more,” she says. Her husband and frequent collaborator Máté Vincze will direct.“I have a subconscious connection to this topic, which I have realized only later.

Alissa Simon Film CriticThe long shadow of the war and its ravages continue to haunt a group of late middle-aged Sarajevan friends in the low-budget, tonally uneven dramedy “May Labor Day” from Bosnian multi-hyphenate Pjer Žalica. Although the material is both a little thin and a tad familiar, the script ticks off a range of contemporary social problems and issues such as the brain drain to Europe of the educated younger generation, junkie no-hopers who get clean through faith, the orphan kids kept off the street through charitable ventures and the nagging dissatisfaction felt by the ordinary men who fought for their country, but feel that it has lost its way.Serving as the closing night attraction of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, “May Labor Day” is a co-production of all the territories of former Yugoslavia and features an ensemble of the region’s best-known actors, who appear to take great pleasure in performing together.

When it was announced that Michael Winterbottom would be making a series about the first pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2022, many assumed—or perhaps hoped—that the politically committed director would be holding the British government to account. However, speaking to Deadline at the 38th Sarajevo Film Festival, 25 years after his acclaimed war drama Welcome To Sarajevo screened there, Winterbottom revealed that, in common with many of his fictionalized but factual feature films, the six-part Sky series This England , which debuts 21 September, will be an ensemble piece, taking a bird’s-eye view of the British authorities’ initial response to COVID.

Good Afternoon International Insider team, Max Goldbart here with your mid-August dose of headlines, analysis and silly emojis. We’re taking a break next week but will be back with your favourite Friday lunchtime newsletter in a fortnight on September 2. For now, read on.