The screening of the film “Men Don’t Cry” was held in memory of producer Damir Ibrahimović (1965-2025), and after the screening, a conversation about working with Ibrahimović was held with Jasmila Žbanić, co-founder of the Deblokada production company and, along with Ibrahimović, the film’s producer and director Alena Drljević.
“This evening is not a commemorative farewell to Damir, but quite the opposite. We are here to meet Damir again, to get to know him again – and it seems to me that there are also young people among us who will perhaps meet him for the first time – through his work, through film. Because great art is always an act of meeting, discovering, getting to know each other,” Nebojša Jovanović, selector of the program “Facing the past”, said at the opening, and emphasized that Ibrahimović’s work is crucial influenced the foundation and development of cinematography not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in the entire region.
“This program is not only important for us who work on it, but for all those who believe in dialogue, understanding and preservation of the culture of memory. In addition to the films that we will watch in the following days, it is important to emphasize that this program includes a regional youth academy, so thirteen young people from the entire region are with us at the opening who will participate in this multi-day program,” said Saša Vasić, program manager of the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation.
On Saturday, November 22 at 6 p.m. in the Meeting Point cinema, the audience as part of the program has the opportunity to watch the film “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin, a Danish candidate for the Oscar for the best international feature film, awarded at the Sundance Film Festival and the festival in Gothenburg. Producer Radovan Sibrt is coming to the screening in Sarajevo, who will have an open conversation with the audience at the Meeting Point cinema after the film.
The film’s protagonist is Pavel, a popular elementary school teacher in a Russian province, who during the Russian invasion of Ukraine is forced to work according to a program aligned with Putin’s propaganda. Nevertheless, he decides to resist and starts filming the changes that are happening in the school and community, recording repressive laws, fiery nationalism, indoctrination aimed at the youngest, as well as the recruitment of high school graduates into the war.
The “Facing the Past” program on Sunday, November 23 at 6 p.m. closes with the film “It was just an accident”, a new work by Jafar Panahi, winner of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2011, a work that won the Palme d’Or in Cannes and is a French candidate for the Oscar. After a stranger with a damaged car visits him at work, mechanic Vahid becomes convinced that he is facing a former torturer who abused him years before in prison. It is uncertain whether this man is really the person Vahid is looking for, but a chance encounter sets off a chain of events that reveal fear and repressed memories. As Vahid assembles a group of former political prisoners who try to determine the man’s identity and appropriate punishment, the film turns into a first-rate thriller about trauma and revenge.
The program is held in partnership with the regional office of the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation.
Free tickets are collected one hour before the start of the screening.
(Vijesti.ba)
