For European Cinema and – and hence for Daazo.com – Sarajevo Film Festival is one of the most important summer-event. So we decided to focus on the festival and its partner programs (Sarajevo City of Film; Sarajevo Talent Campus.) from next week till the end of the festival. Online film premieres, film contest on Daazo.com and a World of Shorts magazine to collect all the relevant info, opinions, creative content concerning Sarajevo Film Festival.

To get started, click here you can find the Short Film Competition programme. Also, you can read below an exciting summary by the festival’s selector, Elma Tataragić. As she said 2011 Sarajevo Film Festival’s short film competition will be very powerful. We try to complement this online on Daazo.com

“This year over 250 films were considered for Sarajevo Film Festival Competition Programme. It was quite a challenge to select the ones that will make the selection. The 2011 Short Competition Programme brings a diverse and powerful line-up of 11 films from Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Turkey, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Seven films are the short fiction works, while the three are animated films. This year’s programme is hosting young filmmakers, some of whom are first-time filmmakers and some are already experienced filmmakers in either short or feature-length film forms.

From Bulgaria we are presenting International Premiere of VTORI DUBAL/ TAKE TWO by Nadedja Koseva, a director already known to our Short Competition Programme. From Hungary, there are two films: International Premiere of VALAMI KEK/ SOMETHING BLUE by Virag Zomboracz, a female director with an impressive filmography that includes short, animated and experimental films; and the Regional Premiere of CSICSKA/ THE BEAST by Attila Till, which was also presented at Directors Fornight of the Cannes Film Festival. Two entries are coming from Croatia, both as International Premieres: animated film DOVE SEI, AMOR MIO by acclaimed animation author Veljko Popović, and short fiction film MEZANIN/ MEZZANINE by Dalibor Matanić, a well known name to our Festival. Two World Premieres are coming from Slovenia, both short fiction films: TOPLO ZA TA LETNI ČAS/ WARM FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR by Blaž Kutin and STVARI, KI JIH NISVA NIKOLI NAREDILA/ THE THINGS WE’VE NEVER DONE TOGETHER by Martin Turk, both authors presented in previous editions of our Festival. Ivan Ramadan from Bosnia and Herzegovina will have the World Premiere of his new animated film KIYAMET, and Huseyin Karabey from Turkey will present International Premiere of his short animated film NO DARKNESS CAN MAKE US FORGET. And finally, from Romania we will present the Regional Premiere of short fiction FOTOGRAFIA/ THE PHOTOGRAPH by Victor Dragomir, and World Premiere of NUMARATOAREA MANUALA/ COUNTING DEVICE by Daniel Sandu.
With four World, five International and two Regional Premieres, this is indeed a very exciting year for short films in the region.”

WORLD PREMIERES

THE COUNTING DEVICE / NUMARATOAREA MANUALA
Romania, by Daniel Sandu
Mircea, an old employee at the National Company of Motorways and National Roads wants to get George – his nephew – hired at the same company. The job consists of manually counting all the cars passing on the national roads for some EU statistics, but they both have different opinions about their work and eventually their friendship turns into a conflict.

KIYAMET
Bosnia and Herzegovina,by Ivan Ramadan
The mind is a place on its own. The mind can turn hell into heaven, and heaven into hell. The mind creates universes. Dark and bright universes, multicolored and pale universes…but the universes has a will of their own.

THE THINGS WE’VE NEVER DONE TOGETHER / STVARI, KI JIH NISVA NIKOLI NAREDILA
Slovenia,by Martin Turk
Klara visits a woman, who doesn’t want to see her. The woman allows Klara to enter in the apartment, but she tries to ignore Klara’s presence.

WARM FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR / TOPLO ZA TA LETNI ČAS
Slovenia, by Blaž Kutin
Tibor is sitting alone outside a bar. After a while he runs out of cigarettes, but the nearby tobacco stand is closed. He heads on and does not stop walking.

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERES

DOVE SEI, AMOR MIO
Croatia, by Veljko Popović
Is the comfort of routine and the happiness it provides enough to keep us its slaves forever? Following the daily routine in an old lady’s life, we soon discover that there is something strange about her. The power of denial and fear of change keep the old lady trapped in her worst nightmares until her secret is finally revealed.

MEZZANINE / MEZANIN
Croatia, by Dalibor Matanić
MEZZANINE is set in an alienated city ruled by merciless principles of corporate society, in which a young woman consents to be reduced to mere human flesh, as it is the only way into the game of survival. Her mother encourages the daughter to embark into this merciless world, becoming aware that her own child is irreversibly damaged. The two of them play a silent game with its main goal – solving the existence problems – achieved, yet they are aware that the aftermath is more than present.

NO DARKNESS CAN MAKE US FORGET! / HIÇ BIR KARANLIK UNUTTURMZ!
Turkey,by Hüseyin Karabey
A film – realised as an animation – about Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist killed by a Muslim nationalist in Istanbul in 2007. His wife’s (Rakel Dink) speech at the funeral becomes a manifesto of peace and tolerance between Muslims and Christians.

SOMETHING BLUE / VALAMI KEK
Hungary, by Virag Zomboracz
Alice and Mary were classmates in the county town highschool. After graduation, they’ve separated: Mary went to college, while Alice felt in love and stayed in the grange. They meet at Alice’s wedding, but Alice receives her friend reservedly: she reckons herself as a victim, and Mary as the symbol of the life she has been deprived of.

TAKE TWO / VTORI DUBAL
Bulgaria, by Nadejda Koseva
In a small Bulgarian town, in the unfinished house, Maria is waiting for her husband. This is the day he returns home after several months of hard work abroad. But he is late. Very late. May be too late..

REGIONAL PREMIERES

BEAST / CSICSKA
Hungary,by Attila Till
István Balogh, a not very affluent Hungarian farmer, lords over his wife, children and his “hired” slave. Cut off from the rest of the world on a distant farm in the Great Plains, he tries to uphold a family ideal he formulated from rigid traditions. The close-knit, albeit extreme, human relations sweep these characters towards tragedy.

THE PHOTOGRAPH / FOTOGRAFIA
Romania, by Victor Dragomir
On his way to a business meeting, Claudiu drops by his old man’s house to snap a photograph his father kept bugging him for. What initially seemed like an easy job proves quite difficult, as the picture is of particular significance to the old man.