Sarajevo New Film Festival director Jovan Marjanovic supports Ukraine without banning Russian films

The new director of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Jovan Marjanovic, promises a “vintage edition” for the 28th SFF.

“We had a great opening movie – the triangle of sadness By Ruben Ostlund – and we have a great closing movie – can labor day by Bosnian director Pier Jalica, who is one of the most beloved local filmmakers, so it will be an exciting end to the festival,” says Marjanovic, who was directed by Mirsad Purivatra, the festival’s original founder, who started the festival in 1995. Siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War.

Marjanovic joined the SFF team in 1999, right out of high school, and began his most important job after two years managing the festival’s industry division and serving as co-director of the SFF with Purivatra. From the beginning, SFF has been committed to being the premier film festival in Southeast Europe.

“In the beginning, we only had a small number of projects from the Balkans that were pitched to potential co-producers in Europe, and from there, a whole ecosystem was really created,” says Marjanović.

the hollywood reporter sat down with Marjanovic on the opening day of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival to talk about his history with the SFF, how the festival became a major player in the local industry, and why it added Ukrainian cinema after the start of the war. your regional authority.

It’s fair to say you grew up around the Sarajevo Film Festival: you joined the team right out of high school. How much has the festival changed since then and what have been the biggest challenges over the years?

I’ve been at the festival for a long time and I participated in the industrial part of the festival. The first thing we did, more than 20 years ago, was to launch a co-production market. I’m talking about CineLink. In the beginning we only had a small number of projects from the Balkans to present to potential co-producers in Europe. In fact, an entire ecosystem emerged. The co-production market later became a conference and then a full-fledged market. Years later we added a talent show and these three initiatives have become the backbone of the festival and our way of supporting the film industry in this part of South East Europe.

What sets the festival apart from other regional and Southeast European film festivals?

The Sarajevo Film Festival is an international film festival, but it is dedicated to cinema from Southeast Europe. It is a vast region that stretches from Austria to Turkey and now includes Ukraine, many small countries with different languages ​​and fragmented markets. Today, the Sarajevo Film Festival is one of the biggest film festivals in Europe. It has been running for 28 years and has found its place on the European map, and I would say the world map of film festivals. You won’t see as many films and projects from Southeast Europe at any other film festival in the world.

This is the first year that Ukraine has joined the family of Southeast European countries that are the focus of the Sarajevo Film Festival.…

To be honest, I think we should have done this a few years ago, because Ukraine was looking for partners. We did this now, after the start of the war, because we felt we needed something concrete, not political, and we believe that the festival platform is the best way to do it: to involve our Ukrainian colleagues and friends in the Southern circle. -Eastern Europe.

Do you support the ban on Russian filmmakers introduced by some festivals after the war?

Russia is not part of the region we are focusing on, so it’s not a political issue for us. We would never program propaganda films for the Russian regime or anything like that. It was like that before and it is like that even after the beginning of the war. I’m not in favor of not showing films, good films, just because the directors are Russian. I don’t think that makes sense. This year we have a short film by Russian filmmakers Yevgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaeva. called transport and deals with environmental problems. The filmmakers live in Great Britain. It is a UK and Russian co-production.

What are the main indicators of the 28th IMF?

It promises to be a classic edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. We had a great opening movie. the triangle of sadness By Ruben Ostlund, which turned out to be evident. We also have a great ending movie. [May Labor Day] From local filmmaker Pjer Žalica, who is one of the most beloved local filmmakers, so it will be an exciting finale to the festival. This year we have an amazing schedule of masterclasses by Ruben Ostlund, Sergey Loznitsa, Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Winterbottom, Ari Folman and Jasmila Zbanic.

you are a producer the triangle of sadness. What was your role in the film? Is there a conflict of interest in scheduling your own film to open your own festival?

It’s a fantastic film, it won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is the perfect title to open the festival. My involvement, our involvement is minimal; We are the associate producers of the film. What we did was bring one of our partners, TRT, the Turkish public broadcaster, into the project as a co-producer. We have worked with TRT for the past five years and this partnership has resulted in three films produced entirely in Sarajevo under the Sarajevo banner, City of Cinema. The three films include one from Slovenia (good day of work by Martin Turk) and two from Bosnia and Herzegovina (focus grandma by Pierre Jalitza and The case of friendly neighbors by Danis Tanovich). All these films were fully funded by TRT and produced by us here in Sarajevo. The first two opened the festival in the last two years. Of course, these films are always shown without competition. So I don’t see any conflict of interest. As a platform dedicated to supporting films and filmmakers from South East Europe, the festival from the beginning programmed the films it produced. Also, Reuben has been friends with the festival since the beginning of his career; We feature all of his films in the past.

Where do you think SFF will go in the near future?

I would say that our main goals are the same: to get closer to our audience and establish new ones, to bring them closer to the best international cinema. Our goal is to continue being a platform for the development of film and series production in our region. How to achieve this goal depends on many different elements: how the market develops, how the audience changes, the funding situation, etc. I’m sure this will change in the next five or 10 years, but the goals will change. remains the same, although the way to achieve these goals is constantly changing.

Our attention to TV series will definitely increase. It’s a growing market and many filmmakers are entering it. More and more companies are investing in television production, including companies in our region, which were not in these numbers before. Now all of a sudden you have companies that have the capital to invest in TV content. This is a game changer. We recognized this trend about seven or eight years ago and today we fully support television production, showing new television shows every year. We also launched a regional academy with 400 members who vote for the best series in the region.

How is the region recovering from COVID?

The box office has clearly dropped during COVID-19, it’s still growing, but it still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. There are signs of recovery across the region; what happened is that telecom operators arrived with their new VOD platforms. Netflix, Amazon and other global streamers were slow to penetrate markets in Southeast Europe, leaving room for local telecom operators to grow and invest in local production.

What role can the Sarajevo Festival play in the region’s comeback and transition to digital distribution?

Many regional festivals have launched VOD platforms or other initiatives to release the international auteur films they support, but these are increasingly difficult to market.

The pandemic has obviously affected film festivals, including the Sarajevo Film Festival, but we organized and turned to online activities. The fact that we can run a kind of boutique VOD platform is an interesting addition to the traditional film festival concept, and this new digital structure gives us the opportunity to reach a wider audience around the world, especially locals who work and live in outside. We are not talking about big numbers here, for example Pjer Žalica focus grandma The first day alone sold 18,000 tickets worldwide. This is definitely a good sign and we’ll have to see what the future holds.