31st Sarajevo Film Festival: Dealing with the Past Program

Dealing with the Past program continues to create space for confronting traumas, untold stories, and forgotten perspectives that shape both collective and personal histories. The program presents future films, documentaries, and experimental works that delve into the aftermath of conflict and the politics of memory. The movie screenings within the Program are open to the general public, under the same terms as the rest of the Sarajevo Film Festival program.

This year, the program features the following screenings:

Ambassador of Remembrance

Austria, 2024, Colour, 100 min.

Director: Magdalena Želasko

In September 1943, seventeen-year-old Stanislaw Zalewski was arrested in Warsaw as a member of a Polish resistance group and taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for labour service. From there, he was sent to Mathausen and finally to the Gusen camp, where prisoners were forced to work for the German armaments industry under inhumane conditions. For a long time, Zalewski, like many other victims of Nazi terror, remained silent about his painful experiences. Now, for the first time, he tells his stirring life story in a film as a deeply impressive "ambassador of remembrance".

The Deserter

Germany, 2024, Colour, 93 min.

Director: Christoph Baumann

Cast: Sebastian Fischer, Anna Kaminski, Sandro Kirtzel, Lana-Mae Lopičić, Nora C. Pichler, Tom Kress

Tyrol 1945: the last days of World War II. Anton, a severely wounded deserter from the SS, and Hannah, a Jewish woman, meet in a remote hut in the mountains. They are initially distrustful of each other, then feelings develop between them. But danger is ever present. For these two, the war is far from over—a story about war and guilt, as well as compassion and humanity.

Fiume o Morte!

Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, 2025, Colour, 112 min.

Director: Igor Bezinović

Citizens of Rijeka, Croatia, which Italians call Fiume, retell, reconstruct, and reinterpret the bizarre story about the sixteen-month occupation of their city in 1919 by the Italian poet, dandy, and preacher of war Gabriele D'Annunzio.

June Turmoil

Yugoslavia, 1969, Black and white, 10 min.

Director: Želimir Žilnik

June Turmoil documents student demonstrations that took place in Belgrade in June 1968. For the most part, the footage was shot in the courtyard of Kapetan Mišino Zdanje (the Faculty of Philosophy building), where students gathered and famous artists participated to show solidarity with the students.

The Loudest Silence

Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2025, Colour, 28 min.

Director: Aleksandar Reljić

Students in Serbia did not celebrate the New Year of 2025; instead, at midnight, they held a fifteen-minute tribute to the victims of the canopy collapse at the Novi Sad Railway Station on November 1, 2024.

Left Behind

Greece, 2025, Colour, 13 min.

Director: Yannis Karpouzis

Cast: Nefeli Kouri, Yannis Beretsos, Eleftheria Konstantopoulou

Nefeli turns the camera on herself to say goodbye to a lost love. What begins as a personal farewell becomes a growing connection to collective resistance.

North South Man Woman

Norway, Latvia, Republic of Korea (South Korea), 2025, Colour, 93 min.

Director: Morten Traavik, Sun Kim

An old Korean proverb says the most beautiful women are in the North, and the most handsome men are in the South. What happens when you try to bring them together? Filmmakers Morten Traavik and Sun Kim journey across the Korean divide to follow Yujin Han, a sharp, charismatic entrepreneur who was born in North Korea and is the founder of LoveStorya, a matchmaking agency with a radical mission: pairing North Korean refugee women with South Korean men.

The Srebrenica Tape - From Dad, for Alisa (main event)

Austria, Germany, 1995, Colour, 88 min.

Director. Chiara Sambuchi

In July 1995, the Army of the Republika Srpska captured Srebrenica and massacred more than 8000 Muslim men. The Bosnian Serb Army troops destroyed every trace of Srebrenica's inhabitants: their diaries, photos, and letters. One VHS tape survived destruction. This unique document is a four-hour film that describes in emotional detail everyday life in the enclave shot for a single viewer: Alisa, the then nine-year-old daughter of Sejfo, an avid amateur filmmaker and resident of Serbenica. Alisa returns to Srebrenica to trace the footsteps of her father.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

France, Palestine, Iran, 2025, Colour, 112 min.

Director: Sepideh Farsi

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a filmmaker's response to the ongoing massacre of Palestinians. A miracle happened when director Sepideh Farsi met Fatima Hassona. Hassona became the filmmaker's eyes in Gaza, where she resisted while documenting the war, as Farsi became a link between Hassona and the world at large from what she calls her "Gaza prison". The two maintained this line for almost a year. The bits of sound and pixels they exchanged became this film. The death of Fatima, on 16 April 2025, as a result of an Israeli raid on her home, changes its meaning forever.

Facing War

Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, 2025, Colour, 104 min.

Director: Tommy Gulliksen

As Putin's war in Ukraine rages on, US President Biden persuades Jens Stoltenberg to remain for one more year as Secretary General of NATO. The Norwegian's post has already been extended several times, and he has promised his wife he will come home this time. But the situation in Ukraine is precarious. NATO is facing its biggest challenge since WW2: Stoltenberg commits to one final year. On a trip to Kyiv, he promises Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that the alliance will stand by Ukraine "for as long as it takes." At this crucial time, support from the allied countries falters, leaving the prospect of peace in Ukraine and stability in Europe in question. Will Stoltenberg be able to keep his word to Zelensky?

Testimonies of Fate and Hope

Israel, Palestine, 2025, Colour, 15 min.

Director: Ayelet Bargur

Testimonies of Fate and Hope is a powerful series of six short illustrated videos, each two or three minutes long, that share the deeply personal stories of bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who are members of the Parent Circle Families Forum who have lost loved ones in the war that began on 7 October 2023. Through intimate, first-person testimonies accompanied by expressive hand-drawn visuals, each piece gives voice to a member who has chosen to transform their pain into a call for peace and reconciliation.

Also Resisters

United States, 2025, Colour and B&W, 13 min.

Director: Christina Bartson

Cast: Sonia Desai Rayka

Also Resisters considers solidarity across generations and geographies. Adapted from a 1968 essay by the gay US socialist David E. McReynolds, the short archival film uses images and sounds of the American war in Vietnam to reflect on the feedback loop between militarism abroad and at home - and the people who resisted it.

The Final Battle

Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2024, Colour, 66 min.

Director: Mladen Miljanović

Four delegated performances and castings feature participants who are directly or indirectly actors of war: veterans, civilian victims, disabled individuals, or those traumatised by conflict. The project, aptly titled The Final Battle, unfolds both in actuality and in its eventual cinematic manifestation through a casting call for a trailer. Reminiscent of cliched Hollywood tropes, the call heralds the production of what is touted to be a high-grossing blockbuster centred around The Final Battle. The trailer enumerates historical clashes like the Battles of Cannae and Waterloo and more recent conflicts such as the Battle of Stalingrad alongside smaller sites of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bihać, Trebinje, Bijeljina, and Doboj, where casting for this imagined film takes place.

In addition to the movie screenings, Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Dialogue Southeast Europe in cooperation with ProPeace are organizing once again programme In Youth Eyes: WESTERN BALKANS YOUTH TEAM which will gather youth from the Western Balkans to attend Sarajevo Film Festival and its “Dealing with the Past” program (DwP) and through their eyes tell the story of intercultural dialogue, youth cooperation, diversity and peace building. The participants of the program will join workshops, classes, and lectures that will be related to reconciliation and peacebuilding.

Lastly, the Dealing with the Past program features the True Stories Market, a unique segment of the Festival that connects filmmakers with organizations and individuals who document and research the 1990s armed conflicts in the region, and bring authentic stories to broader audiences. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Dialogue Southeast Europe helped to identify testimonials/materials/stories written by individuals or organizations that could be used for developing a (documentary) film script, later to be realized. During the Festival program, the submissions that were chosen by the True Stories Market panel of judges were presented to the participants and other interested Festival attendees. One submission will be presented with an award aimed at facilitating the realization of the script into a movie. FES SOE is delighted to announce that this year, we will also be sponsoring the award for True Stories Market.

We encourage all interested attendees of the festival to join us during the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival, and invite you to attend the Dealing with the Past screenings.