The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) in New York City announced the lineup of 13 films for its 2019 edition, which also includes a series of Q&A and discussion panels with filmmakers, running from Wednesday, April 10 through Saturday, April 13 at SVA Theatre, in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
Men Don’t Cry[/caption]
The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) in New York City announced the winners of the Golden Apple Awards for the 15th edition of the festival, and presented the BHFF 2018 Jury Special Mention, as well as the BHFF 2018 Golden Apple Audience Award for Best Picture to MEN DON’T CRY by director Alen Drljević. In MEN DON’T CRY, twenty years after the conclusion of the Bosnian War, a group of Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian men meet to discuss their experiences and process the events that shaped their lives decades ago. MEN DON’T CRY embraces moral uncertainty and examines the effects of time on painful memories. It explores themes of ethnic conflict and the impact, both physical and emotional, that war leaves on its participants.
BHFF 2018 jury statement: “There is a part of social life around us that we have to make visible and which is difficult to make visible. The crisis of masculinity in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina is a topic that has only begun to be addressed and discussed, especially concerning veterans’ trauma and its war implications. MEN DON’T CRY makes a giant step in this direction.”
THE FROG, directed by Elmir Jukić, produced by Ademir Kenović, and starring Emir Hadžihafizbegović, won the BHFF 2018 Golden Apple Jury Award for Best Feature. In THE FROG, Zeko, a barber and a war veteran, attempts to reassemble the pieces of his life by reaching out to his brother Braco, who has been grappling with addiction, and his friend Švabo, a cab driver who spent the war years in Germany and is struggling with his own demons.
BHFF 2018 Jury statement: “The energy this film exudes and enthralls us with is masterfully nuanced in the rhythm of its narration, as well as in the subtle unfolding of characters that capture the spectator and trasfigure her through their life drama. Watching THE FROG engages the audience in a way that has a redemptive effect and results in deep affective bonds with the story and its protagonists.”
Emir Hadžihafizbegović won the BHFF 2018 Jury Award for Best Acting Performance for his role as Zeko in Elmir Jukić’s THE FROG.
BHFF 2018 jury statement: “The unanimously reached decision by the jury on this award is certainly a telltale sign of the force of Emir Hadžihafizbegović’s acting talent and his mastery of the acting craft. Emir Hadžihafizbegović in the role of Zeko in the film THE FROG brings us a luminously moving, darkly troubling and truly loveable character who makes us empathize with his life-story, predicaments, and uncompromising, even if unsettling, humanity.”
Samira Kameli and Sajra Subašić’s TO BE FAR won the BHFF 2018 Golden Apple Jury Award for Best Documentary. In TO BE FAR, the filmmakers attempt to document a refugee center in Bosnia. Denied entry, they instead film the center from afar, reflecting upon the lives of its residents, the services provided to them, and the painful circumstances that brought them to this place.
BHFF 2018 Jury statement: “Through an intriguing and novel anti-documentary perspective, TO BE FAR leaves us thinking ethically and politically about the lines of exclusion and segregation of refugees. It also poses the question of the brutalization of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian society that, despite its recent history of war and mass exile, no longer identifies with the plight of those who lost everything.”
Aleksandra Odić’s GREAT WALL OF CHINA won the BHFF 2018 Golden Apple Jury Award for Best Short Film. In GREAT WALL OF CHINA, the legacy of the conflicts of the 1990s lurks in the background of a family gathering in the Bosnian countryside, as experienced by Maja, a young girl. Maja’s life is upended by the arrival of Aunt Lilija, an impassioned young woman with artistic ambitions.
BHFF 2018 Jury statement: “GREAT WALL OF CHINA makes a deep impression with its poetry of the everyday, and its lyrical images of the lives of women of different generations. The gazes between the main protagonists reveal their complex, untold feelings in a way that is truly remarkable in a cinematic language.”
Emir Hadžihafizbegović[/caption]
Legendary actor Emir Hadžihafizbegović will participate in two Q&As at the upcoming 2018 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF), following screenings of his two films Men Don’t Cry and The Frog. On Friday, April 13, Hadžihafizbegović joins director Alen Drljević for a Q&A following the 9:30pm screening of Men Don’t Cry. On Saturday, April 14, Hadžihafizbegović joins renowned producer Ademir Kenović and emerging director Elmir Jukić for a Q&A following the 6:00PM screening of their film The Frog. Both events take place at SVA Theatre in New York City.
Emir Hadžihafizbegović is a Bosnian film, theater, and television actor. Emir has appeared and been in more than 80 roles in theater and on TV spanning a 30 year career. Mr Hadžihafizbegović was born in the Bosnian city of Tuzla in 1961. He received his diploma in acting at the Academy of Arts in Sarajevo in 1986. He was awarded the Golden Arena for best actor at the Pula Film Festival and Best Actor Award at the Durban International Film Festival. Hadžihafizbegović was also the Minister of Culture and Sport in Sarajevo Canton. Hadžihafizbegović is twice nominated for the BHFF 2018 Jury Award for Best Acting Performance, for his roles in The Frog and Men Don’t Cry.
Drljević’s Men Don’t Cry, starring Hadžihafizbegović, is an unflinching look at one of the most troubling consequences of the war: the long-term psychological trauma of war veterans, and the social stigma placed on their wounded masculinity. Based on the true story of former soldiers from all ethnic sides coming together to participate in drama workshops and share their war traumas with one another, Hadžihafizbegović leads a stellar cast of regional actors who all give powerhouse performances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dgSSQGJSe4
The Frog, starring Hadžihafizbegović and directed by Jukić, is an intensely emotional portrayal of an encounter between several men in a barber shop, where unresolved family issues and war wounds bubble up to the surface. With a tour de force performance by Hadžihafizbegović, Frog is an insightful study of PTSD, masculinity, as well as the social hardships facing Bosnia’s present.
https://vimeo.com/232259400 Men Don’t Cry[/caption]
A total of 15 films will screen at the 2018 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF), along with a series of Q&A and discussion panels with filmmakers. The festival will run from Wednesday, April 11 through Saturday, April 14 at two Manhattan venues.
The BHFF will kick off with a special event on Wednesday, April 11, with a screening and discussion panel at Anthology Film Archives before moving to the SVA Theatre for three exciting nights featuring screenings, events with with filmmakers, and much more.
This year’s program will feature the work of 7 women directors, and brings to New York City both innovative young filmmakers, as well as established regional names including renowned director and screenwriter Aida Begić, and legendary actor Emir Hadžihafizbegović.
The fifteenth annual BHFF and will consist of five narrative feature films, four narrative shorts and six documentary films. All films selected to screen at the 15th Annual BHFF program are eligible to win a number of honors including the Golden Apple audience and jury awards. Films in competition are:
Undercovered[/caption]
Undercovered | Nejra Latić Hulušić, Sabrina Begović-Čorić | 53 min
Undercovered deals with six young Bosnian women from different spheres of life who decide to wear the headscarf as expression of their religion and identity.
Winter Sun (Zimsko sunce) | Pilar Palomero | 37 min
Nana, who is eighty years old, is in need of a surgery. To have it, she and her husband must leave their home in the small village of Hrsa, in this an intimate look at this couple’s struggles to navigate a daunting healthcare system.
The BHFF also presents a jury award for Best Acting Performance, awarded to an actor or actress in a lead or supporting role in any of the narrative short and feature films. The festival extend the following nominations for the BHFF 2018 Jury Award for Best Acting Performance to:
Emir Hadžihafizbegović, lead actor in the role of Zeko in The Frog
Ermin Bravo, lead actor in the role of Ahmed in Men Don’t Cry
Elena Matić, lead actress in the role of Maja in Great Wall of China
Boris Glibusić, lead actor in the role of Vedran in Nothing but the Wind
Izudin Bajrović, supporting actor in the role of Sead in Pink Elephant
Jasna Žalica, supporting actress in the role of Zlata in Pink Elephant
Isa Demlakhi, lead actor in the role of Isa in Never Leave Me
Emir Hadžihafizbegović, lead actor in the role of Merim in Men Don’t Cry
A Good Wife, Mirjana Karanović, 2017 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival[/caption]
A Good Wife, Mirjana Karanović’s story of a woman whose life is shaken when she discovers a video that implicates her husband Vlada in war crimes, won the Golden Apple Jury Award for Best Feature at 2017 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) in New York City. Mirjana Karanović also won the BHFF’s first ever Jury Award for Best Acting Performance for her role inA Good Wife.
A Good Wife is a powerful film that was awarded for relevant, timely and brave script, an important theme and skillfully executed storytelling and cinematography.
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NO SMOKING IN SARAJEVO, Gianluca Loffredo – 14th Annual Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival Awards Presentation[/caption]
No Smoking In Sarajevo, Gianluca Loffredo’s retrospective on iconic Bosnian rock band No Smoking, and the unique period that ushered in the region’s comic and sharp-edged New Primitivism movement, won the BHFF 2017 Golden Apple Jury Award for Best Documentary.
No Smoking In Sarajevo was awarded for a perceptive storytelling and weaving of a complex and subtle narrative, from an outsider looking into a tragic story that is symbolic of so many breakups of the last 25 years.
Goran Kapetanović’s Refugee 532, in which twelve-year-old refugee Sevko must adapt to his new life in Sweden while overcoming adversity and waiting for news from home, won the BHFF 2017 Golden Apple Jury Award for Best Short Film.
Refugee 532 is wonderfully cast and with satisfying script and emotional performances, a story that not only speaks of our recent past but also of our global present.
Danis Tanović’s Death In Sarajevo, a biting satire mirroring the precariousness of modern Europe, won the BHFF 2017 Golden Apple Audience Award for Best Picture.
Films receiving Jury Awards were selected by the official BHFF 2017 Jury, an expert panel, comprised of renowned photojournalist Ron Haviv; filmmaker and author Zlata Filipović, and acclaimed costume designer Amela Bakšić.
My Aunt in Sarajevo | Goran Kapetanović[/caption]
A total of 13 films, including 6 Q&A and discussion panels with the filmmakers, will screen at the 2017 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) running from Wednesday, April 12 through Saturday, April 15 at two Manhattan venues.
Starting things off on Wednesday, April 12 at Anthology Film Archives will be a special screening of Branko Ištvančić documentary feature film Album, a look at the Balkan wars through the memories of photos left behind, followed by a panel discussion on the subject of post-Yugoslav cinema.
The festival’s competition program will be held at SVA Theater on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from April 13-15, and will consist of four narrative feature films, four narrative shorts and four documentary films. Films in competition are:
Films selected to screen at the 14th Annual BHFF competition program are eligible to win a number of honors including the Golden Apple audience and jury awards.
An Episode in the Life of An Iron Picker”(“Epizoda u životu berača željeza”)
The Bosnian- Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) announced the film lineup for its eleventh annual event. A total of 16 films will screen May 1-3, 2014, at Tribeca Cinemas in New York City. They include four feature films, five short films, and seven documentaries.
The films screening at the 2014 BHFF were carefully selected from 33 submissions from 10 countries including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the United States, and Canada.
The Eleventh Annual BHFF will show yet another masterwork by Danis Tanović. Last year, his short fiction film “Baggage” (“Prtljag”) won the Golden Apple award for Best Short Film. This year, the festival will screen Tanović’s film titled “An Episode in the Life of An Iron Picker”(“Epizoda u životu berača željeza”). The film centers around a Roma family in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose harrowing odyssey of survival provides a damning critique of the social conditions that trap them. It will screen during Closing Night of the Festival.
“Circles” (“ Krugovi”)
In addition to Tanović’s, three other feature films will be screened at this year’s Festival: Srđan Golubović’s “Circles” (“
“Circles” (“Krugovi”) starts off in the grips of the Bosnian war in 1993, when Serbian soldier Marko witnesses his three comrades brutally attacking Haris, a Muslim civilian. Marko interferes and saves Haris’ life, but is consequently killed by his infuriated fellow soldiers. In 2008, years after the war’s conclusion, the effects of the conflict still loudly resonate as Marko’s family and friends are faced with the choice between forgiveness and revenge.
“A Stranger” (“Obrana i zaštita”)
In “A Stranger” (“Obrana i zaštita”), the death of an old friend plunges Slavko into a dilemma. He is unsure whether he, a Croat, should attend the funeral in the Muslim part of Mostar. On the one hand, he feels like it’s his duty; on the other, he fears a hostile reaction from his own community. This psychological study is based on the fact that nearly two decades after the war, Mostar is still divided.
“With Mom” (“Sa mamom”)
“With Mom” (“Sa mamom”) tells the story of Berina, a young artist who struggles to come to terms with her mother’s terminal illness and the deterioration of family bonds, while also exploring her awakening sexuality. Lončarević’s powerful coming-of-age story examines the sharpened dynamics of a family in crisis.
Three short films, “May 31st” (“Trideset i prvi maj”), “Bosnia in Our Hearts” (“Bosnien i våra hjärtan”), and “Shunt” (“Fasunga”), will premiere internationally at the 2014 BHFF.
Mirza Ajnadžić’s “May 31st” (“Trideset i prvi maj”) documents the White Armband Initiative, a controversial commemoration for non- Serb war victims in Prijedor, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In Sixten Björkstrand’s “Bosnia in Our Hearts” (“Bosnien i våra hjärtan”), three Bosnians from Finland travel to Lithuania to witness the last and crucial qualifying game for the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
“Shunt” (“Fasunga”), directed by Zoran Ćatić, is a brief analysis of historical and socio-political transitions that constantly challenge the permanence of memories.
“Tales from a Forgotten City” will premiere in the U.S. at this year’s Festival. Directed by Amir Grabus, this short documentary is an ode to the beautiful memories of Mostar as it once used to be. It follows the ambitions of music producer Dragi Šestić and his musical ensemble, Mostar Sevdah Reunion.
Having its New York premiere at the 11th Annual BHFF is Chris Leslie’s and Oggi Tomic’s “Finding Family” (“U potrazi za porodicom”), an unforgiving documentary about one orphan’s extraordinary journey back to Bosnia twenty years after being abandoned in the midst of the siege of Sarajevo. The film has just won Best New Work and Best Factual awards at the British Academy Scotland New Talent Awards 2014. A Q&A session with Leslie will take place during Closing Night of the Festival at 8:00 PMin The Varick Room.
Other films included in the selection are:
Nedžad Begović’s “Beško,” about a modern guy who belongs to the new generation of “Walters” in Sarajevo;
Mirna Dizdarević’s “Vita Mulier,” a short documentary about two ballerinas struggling to survive in a city that does not value their art;
Una Kreso’s “A Wound That Is Hidden” (“Rana koja se krije”), about a young woman who fled the Bosnian war with her family and returns to Sarajevo to discover her roots;
Damir Bašić’s “Just to take a look” (“Samo da pogledam”), a 60- second social commentary on the daily life of an ordinary citizen in Bosnia-Herzegovina;
“Trnopolje, A Forgotten Summer” (“Trnopolje, jedno zaboravljeno ljeto”), directed by Zabou Cârrière, Taina Tervonen and Jean-Baptiste Delpias, about survivors of the concentration camp in Trnopolje, Bosnia-Herzegovina;
Ado Hasanović’s “Mum” (“Mama”), a cautionary tale about starting over;
Amela Ćuhura’s “We Survived” (“Nek je živa glava”), a short fiction film about a former POW who returns to Sarajevo to find his family.
Films selected to screen at the 11th Annual BHFF are eligible to win a number of honors including the Golden Apple audience and jury awards.
In 2014, the BHFF Jury consists of L.A.-based author, filmmaker and photographer Harun Mehmedinović; internationally acclaimed artist Nebojša Šerić-Shoba; and Brooklyn-based filmmaker and multimedia artist Amir Husak. They will award the following honors to the most outstanding films: BHFF 2014 Jury Award for Best Documentary Film; BHFF 2014 Jury Award for Best Short or Animated Film and BHFF 2014 Jury Award for Best Feature Film. Films eligible for the Jury Award are all those screened at the BHFF 2014 that were produced in 2012, 2013 and 2014.