Film Festivals, from Sarajevo to Pesaro

Anniversaries of two film festivals from two sides of the Adriatic Sea - Pesaro and Sarajevo. A cultural exchange focused on cinema, cities and music from a youth perspective

The Sarajevo Film Festival showcased a compelling collaboration with the Pesaro Film Festival, which, in the year, the UNESCO Creative City of Musicon Italy’s Adriatic coast also holds the title of Italian Capital of Culture 2024. This partnership between one of the oldest film festivals in Italy and the Sarajevo Film Festival has fostered a meaningful artistic exchange directly involving young generations. In particular, last June, as part of the “Novi Bioskop” project, the Sarajevo Film Festival presented a programme of short films in Pesaro, while a group of students from the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, who had the opportunity to travel to Pesaro on artistic residence, realised the short film “Le mani della città - Hands of the City” from June 10 to 21, 2024.

On August 22nd, the collaboration continued with a sold-out screening of 16 Italian animated short films produced over the past two years, namely: “La mia ombra di dubbio” by Alice Curatolo, “Sina and the eel” by Anna Giulia Picoco, “Graziano e la giraffa” by Fabio Orlando and Tommaso Zerbi, “Cotone” by Lucia Catalini, “Deamland” by Gianluigi Toccafondo, “Contamination” by Roberto Cannarile, “Garlo the Garlic” by Stefano Zappia, “La naturale bellezza del creato” by Michele Bernardi e Roberto Zappalá, “PoliNecroLove” by Sara Andrea Gravino, “Things” di Adina Enache and Oscar Renni, “Planets” by Igor Imhoff, “Mao Mao” by Elio Ferrario, “Lotta di Latta” di AV, “Il sogno” by Donato Sansone, “Pornostages” by Donato Sansone, Simone Brillarelli, and Enrico Ascoli.

The selection included both renowned authors and emerging talents, presented under the initiative “Significant Anniversaries of Two Festivals from Two Sides of the Sea - Pesaro Short Film Presents”. Giulia Ghigi, Programming Assistant to the Pesaro Film Festival, introduced the films to the Bosnian audience alongside Ado Hasanović, Bosnian-Italian film director.

Highlighting the importance of the artistic exchange and transnational mobility, the students of the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, under the guidance of Bojana Vidosavljević and Ado Hasanović, and with the collaboration of Elisa Sorge (editor), Leonardo Kurtz (director of photography), and Livio Paulet (sound and design), presented their short film “Le mani della città - Hands of the City” withgreat interest from the international and local audience.

On the sidelines of the screening, we had the chance to interview the students and crew members who had travelled to Pesaro for the first time as part of this unique artistic exchange: Bojana Vidosavljević (Scriptwriting Mentor), Emir Kapetanović (Director), Berina Mušanović and Ilma Smajlović (scriptwriters), Nadja Paranos and Omar Homarac (Executive Producers). The Bosnian-born director Ado Hasanović, residing in Italy, acted as Directing Mentor and Giulia Ghigi, introduced the crew to the audience of the Sarajevo Film Festival.

With all of them, we spoke about their experience of visiting a city so unfamiliar that it carried no preconceived notions, myths, or stereotypes, unlike for example iconic Italian cities like Venice or Florence. The conversation touched on how the team managed to create a short film in such a brief time and then present the final product in their home country.

Bojana Vidosavljević began by explaining that the project was organised by Pesaro Film Festival in collaboration with the Academy of Performing Arts, University of Sarajevo and the Sarajevo Film Festival.

“We did not know much about Pesaro before this project. It is not a city that typically comes to mind when we think of Italy. However, the collaboration between the Pesaro Film Festival and the Sarajevo Film Festival has created a thematic bridge between the two festival cities on opposite sides of the Adriatic Sea. This year marked a special occasion, as the Pesaro Film Festival celebrated a major anniversary, the 60th, and Sarajevo Film Festival the 30th - exactly half the age of Pesaro’s - also a significant milestone. This coincidence added an interesting layer to the collaboration. The two festivals had already arranged to feature films from the Sarajevo Film Festival at Pesaro in June, and now, films from the Pesaro Film Festival would be shown in Sarajevo. Beyond that, they wanted to involve the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, an institution essential to developing Bosnian cinema and future filmmakers. Most of our country’s great directors and creators are alumni of this academy.

Elma Tataragić, head of the International Competition section for the Sarajevo Film Festival and a professor at the academy, played a key role in this collaboration. She has been part of the festival since its inception and is a great mentor for students. She suggested including the academy in the project, and together with Adam Tataragić, who lived in Rome for over a decade and has strong ties to Italian cinema, we established this unique exchange.

As an assistant screenwriting professor at the academy, I worked closely with Elma and Adam to select five students: two producers, two screenwriters and one director. Pesaro Film Festival supported us by bringing in Italian artists, such as cinematography, sound engineering and editing professionals, to work alongside our students.

Ado Hasanović and I served as mentors during the project. We decided to create a short documentary about Pesaro, which was the only guideline from the festival. It was a challenging yet exciting task, as we had complete creative freedom.

Though we thought we would be deeply connected to Italian culture through cinema, music and even comics like Zerocalcare and Bonelli publications, Pesaro was utterly unfamiliar. This presented a beautiful, albeit challenging opportunity to discover and portray a city we knew nothing about and where we had never met anyone before. It was the opposite of our experience with Sarajevo, where nearly everyone arrives with a fixed image already in their mind. Finding someone who comes without preconceived notions is rare here, but those who do often leave with a much deeper understanding.

The students we brought ranged in experience. We included final-year students in directing and producing, as we wanted young professionals near the end of their studies. At the same time, we involved younger students, like our second-year screenwriters, Berina and Smajlović. This mix of expertise, seniority, aspirations and talent was key to the project’s success. We knew them well from working with them daily, and this familiarity made the process smoother and more creative”.

Berina added that they immediately “said yes to the opportunity to take part in the Pesaro Film Festival in such a professional way. From the very beginning, we were eager and ready to go. I was the one who began the research, and everything was quickly done: three days of field research followed by three days of shooting. We did not know the citizens we decided to interview beforehand, but we immediately established a connection with them. We named the film Ruke Grada “Hands of the City”. In Bosnian, “Port” is Luka, which fits perfectly with the name of the town for which we proposed the motto ‘No city was ever built all by itself, but by its people’”.

Do you think not having prior experience in the city could even be an advantage, allowing you to be free from bias?

“Definitely, Bojana said something beautiful that deeply resonated with us, that it was like a blank slate. Not having preconceived notions allowed us to dive in with curiosity and approach it with fresh eyes. Bojana and Ado motivated us from the very beginning, helping us overcome our fears. Our academic mentality trained us to create something out of nothing, and improvisation was key in this project.

We did not want just to make a basic reportage but were committed to producing a short documentary film, something artistic that we could stand by and that could spark future discussions. Curiosity was our driving force, and it turned out to be very powerful.

Giulia Ghigi underlined the great value of having a director like Ado working and mentoring the students as he is also a role model for them. “Ado’s work also demonstrated that Bosnian cinema is vibrant and alive, pushing beyond those war-centered narratives that were predominant over the past decades. It seems now crucial to them - Giulia adds - that even in post-war countries, it is possible to produce cinema that is not exclusively tied to conflicts or trauma. For instance, Ado was the only one from Bosnia-Herzegovina who was already present there with us and with his work, but his creativity went much beyond representing any government or heavy political message. That’s the beauty of it and art.

Regarding the Pesaro experience, I would also like to add that our focus was not merely on music or cinema but also on craftsmanship. We saw it firsthand in the workshops. Exploring connections between cinema, music and artistry from a different perspective was very fascinating. And the sea! The sea was a big element for us. Even though we are not from a coastal city, the sea felt like home in a way. Everyone we spoke to in Pesaro had a deep connection with it”.

Nadja, one of the youngest Bosnian students taking part in the residential activities in Pesaro, concluded that “there was an immediate connection between the locals and us. It was incredible. We did not expect such warmth and openness. From the first day, we felt at home in Pesaro. We actually had no expectations at all, we went there with nothing and we came back with a film”.

These accounts really capture the essence of the reflections on the Pesaro-Sarajevo collaboration, highlighting the participants' surprise at how connected they felt with the people in Pesaro and the significance of the artistic exchange between the two sides of the Adriatic Sea.