22nd Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival in NYC Sets Lineup of 12 Titles

The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) in New York City has announced the lineup of twelve films selected for the official competition program, for its 22nd edition, running from Wednesday, April 22nd, through Saturday, April 25th at the SVA Theatre in New York City.

They include the Sarajevo Film Festival opening film, The Pavilion by Dino Mustafić, Mirza Begović’s popular comedy Testament, as well as documentaries made in collaboration with Bosnian cultural figures such as Aleksandar Hemon, Srđan Gino Jevđević, and Aida Šehović.

The festival will also feature the latest film by documentarian Lidija Zelović, a new documentary short by multimedia artist Bojan Stojčić, along with a series of interactive Q&As and conversations with filmmaker guests.

“At this year’s festival, the artists featured both in front of and behind the camera demonstrate, time and again, the political power of cinema as a voice for the lesser seen or rarely heard stories and experiences. In a very difficult year for the Bosnian-Herzegovinian film industry, where resources and institutional support continued to dwindle, filmmakers have been proven, yet again, to be a resilient force that finds many creative solutions to get their films made and seen by the broader public. This is a feat worthy of celebration. We are excited to continue to showcase the best of Bosnian, regional, and diasporic cinema and uplift diverse voices and filmmaking approaches during these trying times for creatives more broadly. We salute this year’s filmmakers for their bravery, moral clarity, and astute observations, at a time of multifold crises that envelop the world we live in,” said the BHFF Artistic Director Amir Husak and Programming Director Dijana Jelača.

The films in the 22nd BHFF Competition Program are:

BHFF 2026 PROGRAM

TESTAMENT
Mirza Begović | 101 min
Narrative Feature
A young Bosnian man faces inheritance disappointment and navigates factory life in 1990s Zenica, while his friend’s schemes reveal community tensions before wartime.

EASTERN WESTERN
Biliana & Marina Grozdanova | 108 min
Narrative Feature
New York Premiere
Eastern Western is a story of a son raised by two fathers, one from the European East and one from the American West, set on the cusp of the 20th century. Deep in the mountains of the American frontier, Igor, an immigrant and recent widower, struggles to raise his two-year-old son in the harshness of winter. When Duncan, an American horse rancher and friendly acquaintance, decides to move his horse-breeding business and family to California, Igor and his son join the wagon train headed West. After a series of encounters with both friend and foe, Duncan is left with a decision that will affect the family’s future forever.

CEASEFIRE
Jakob Krese | 32 min
Documentary Short
North American Premiere
Hazira survived the Srebrenica massacre 30 years ago. Trapped in limbo within her own country, Hazira’s life unfolds in the Ježevac camp near Tuzla—far from the mountain village she fled, now part of the Serbian entity. With biting dark humor and unwavering resilience, Hazira navigates the monotony and hardship of displacement—chopping wood, scrubbing every surface, always in motion to keep the past at bay. Her daily rituals are both a coping mechanism and a quiet protest against a trauma that never fades and a system that has left her behind. As Bosnia and Herzegovina marks three decades since the end of the war and the genocide in Srebrenica, Ceasefire offers a tribute to those still living its aftermath. A reflection on survival, memory, and the cost of unresolved history, the film asks: how long can one live in the shadow of a war that never really ended?

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
Mirko Pincelli | 89 min
Documentary Feature
North American Premiere
Thirty years after genocide – the first in Europe since World War II – survivors in Bosnia and Herzegovina still search for their loved ones. Where Have You Been traces the homecoming of the Bosnian-American artist Aida Šehović and her participatory, nomadic monument to the Srebrenica Genocide. With the monument coming to its final resting place after traveling the world for 15 years, those who remain gather at the site of the atrocities to fill thousands of small, ceramic coffee cups in memory of the victims. As they collectively mourn, painful questions endure. What does “never again” mean in a world where perpetrators live with impunity? Can art and empathy help fill the void left by immeasurable loss and trauma?

THE PARTISAN NECROPOLIS
Chris Leslie | 71 min
Documentary Feature
North American Premiere
In Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Partisan Memorial Cemetery—once a striking tribute to Yugoslav fighters who resisted Nazi-aligned forces—now stands shattered, defaced, and engulfed in political controversy. Built between 1959 and 1965 by renowned architect Bogdan Bogdanović, the site has become a powerful flashpoint in a society grappling with the resurgence of right-wing revisionism. The documentary traces the cemetery’s transformation from a celebrated monument to a target of neo-fascist destruction, culminating in the 2022 attack that obliterated hundreds of engraved stone markers. While many local leaders and institutions dismiss the memorial as a relic of a bygone ideology, a small group of families refuses to let their loved ones’ legacies be erased. Their fight to preserve the site—and what it represents—anchors a broader examination of how histories are rewritten and weaponized.

HOME GAME
Lidija Zelović | 98 min
Documentary Feature
North American Premiere
Lidija Zelović has been portraying her displaced family in the Netherlands since 1993, ever since they fled their war-torn home in Sarajevo. Zelović’s film essay exposes the duality that all migrants live with: what is ‘home’? By doing so, the filmmaker draws attention to disruptive social and political developments in the Netherlands, which she recognizes from her native (fallen apart) Yugoslavia. Drawing from her family film archive, Zelović alternates scenes at home—discussions about politics and football on Sundays with her parents and brother, her son growing up, the holidays ‘at home’ in Bosnia—with political events in the Netherlands, such as political murders, scandals involving government discrimination, growing social polarization, increasing unrest in society, and the acceptance of radical right-wing politics at the center of power. Home Game offers a sometimes funny, often confrontational, and always sincere look into Zelović’s life, which functions as a mirror for the current political climate in the Netherlands and many other countries around the world.

LINT
Tarik Berber | 7 min
Narrative Short
New York Premiere
From producer Aleksandar Hemon comes an experimental animated film that explores ​​how small, perishable moments can be carried into the future. Drawn and directed by Tarik Berber, music by Cielo Hemon.

NO BIG DEAL
Mirza Abdagić | 17 min
Narrative Short
North American Premiere
After a doctor finds a bunch of butterflies in Sead’s stomach, he urges him to get an operation. However, today is Friday the 13th, and that might be fatal for the patient. Even though Sead doesn’t much believe in superstitions, he accepts the doctor’s safer way of treating his problem – going to therapy and making butterflies come out of his mouth. Except Sead would much rather risk his life than talk about his feelings.

STEEL HOTEL SONG
Bojan Stojčić | 20 min
Documentary Short
North American Premiere
Željezara Zenica, once a steel mill giant, at the height of its power, employed 24,000 workers. Hotel Internacional was its crown jewel—a modernist masterpiece intended to host the highest-ranking business delegations. After the partial privatization of Željezara Zenica, the hotel was closed and left to the passage of time, guarded only by former steelworks employees. Opposite the hotel stands the stadium of the Bosnia and Herzegovina national football team, where thousands of fans gather for every match to cheer on and celebrate their national side. Nationalistic celebration of the country echoes through the empty halls of Hotel Internacional—a symbol of the collapse of its industry.

ILLUMINATION
Mina Vavan | 15 min
Narrative Short
North American Premiere
Mahir (28), a tired online journalist stuck translating sensationalist news, moves through his days numbed by routine and moral compromise. Driving home late one night, he witnesses a hit-and-run on a deserted road outside the city. The driver flees, leaving Mahir alone with the injured body of a young woman. As he calls emergency services, his professional reflex kicks in: he photographs the scene and contacts his editor. What begins as an attempt to report the truth quickly turns into an ethical confrontation, as Mahir is pressured to cross every journalistic boundary in pursuit of a “strong story.” Alone in the darkness, caught between human dignity and media exploitation, Mahir must decide what kind of witness, and what kind of journalist, he is willing to be.

THE PAVILION
Dino Mustafić | 100 min
Narrative Feature
US Premiere

After years of abuse and humiliation, a group of residents at “The Pavilion” nursing home decides to stage an armed rebellion. Armed with illegal weapons, they seize control of the facility, take the staff hostage, and enter into conflict with the authorities. Their desperate struggle turns into a media and political spectacle, while old age becomes their advantage—they have nothing to lose and are ready to go all the way. A new order emerges inside “The Pavilion,” driven by revenge and accumulated anger, and negotiations with the rebels become impossible.

GRANDPA GURU
Silvio Mirošničenko | 91 min
Documentary Feature
New York Premiere

Grandpa Guru presents in an eclectic documentary style the continuity of the work of the band Kultur Shock with special emphasis on the interesting life, music, and art of their singer and frontman Srđan Gino Jevđević. We follow Gino’s spiritual journey in search of his own identity and place in the world, after leaving Sarajevo during the war and arriving in Seattle, USA, where he meets Krist Novoselic from Nirvana and Jello Biafra from the punk band Dead Kennedys, who persuade him to continue playing music. Gino is haunted by the question of belonging and the feeling of being torn between life in America, Sarajevo, and his mother and family. This is a story of transformation in times of hardship, escaping to the end of the world and a forever-haunting demon.