FES SOE & Sarajevo Film Festival: Call for Proposals

As an integral part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s (SFF) Dealing with the Past program, the True Stories Market occurs every year during festival season which will take place this year from August 13^th to August 20^th. The True Stories Market is a unique event that connects filmmakers with organizations or individuals who document and research the Yugoslav war of the 1990s aiming to bring true stories to a broader audience. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Dialogue Southeast Europe has established a cooperation with the SFF and will – among other contributions like film screenings and discussions – help to identify testimonials/materials/stories written by individuals or organizations, that could be used for developing a (documentary) film script, later to be realized.

The aim is to create a platform where these individuals/organizations and filmmakers can meet and collaborate to provide these important stories the public awareness they deserve through using the power of cinema.

After a pre-selection process, five stories will be invited to participate in the True Stories Market workshop during the Festival in August. A committee (in which FES SOE will be represented) will finally choose a winner who is going to receive an award of 10.000 Euro in the name of the producer and production manager Branko Lustig (“Schindler’s List”). To facilitate story transition from market to screen, filmmakers will be invited after the festival to execute a project inspired by the winner's story.

For examples of selected stories, you can have a look on which proposals were formerly invited to the Festival’s True Stories Market. The preferred format for submitting proposals is a one-page text with all basic information about the story. Additional material like photos or links to video footage can be sent as well.

Examples of subjects for stories to be submitted:

• Accounts of war-time rape victims and their life after the war
• Missing persons and open trials; criminal proceedings and convictions; law on amnesty and pardon for perpetrators
• War refugees and displaced people and their return / Reuniting with the place and / or re-meeting perpetrators of the crime
• Psychological consequences of war; impact on life and surviving family members (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, victims’ obsessive-compulsive behavior)
• Stories of reconciliation and optimism: People of different backgrounds (emphasis on national identity) saved each other's lives; returnees; completed trials; positive experiences of younger generations in dealing with the past
• Life in a place where there was no war versus the experience of war – impact and consequences
• Wartime childhood – personal accounts of people who were children during the war, their stories, perspectives, and experiences of war
• Impact and consequences of war on all segments of life – open wounds, dialogue, coexistence, traumata of children born during or after the war and how to move forward?

Please send all proposals to Saša Vasić: sasa.vasic(at)fes-soe.org. Deadline for submitting proposals is extended to July 10th 2021.

Call for Applications (Pdf)