{"id":44545,"date":"2026-08-14T14:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44545"},"modified":"2026-08-14T14:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:52:24","slug":"sarajevo-film-festival-boss-jovan-marjanovic-owns-their-origin-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44545","title":{"rendered":"Sarajevo Film Festival Boss Jovan Marjanovi\u0107 Owns Their Origin Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tJovan Marjanovi\u0107 is aware just how special the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/sarajevo-film-festival\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sarajevo-film-festival_1\" data-tag=\"sarajevo-film-festival\">Sarajevo Film Festival<\/a> is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tHe would know, having worked for the Bosnian festival since he was just 19. Marjanovi\u0107 is 46 now, and comes into his fifth edition as the event\u2019s sole director with buckets of confidence in what this fest has to offer European cinema.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tSarajevo is a film festival born out of war \u2014\u00a0its first edition, in 1995, took place while the city was still under siege \u2014\u00a0and that sense of resistance, of using film to empower communities, still sits at the heart of the festival today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tBritish actress Emily Watson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/emily-watson-sarajevo-film-festival-jury-president-heart-1236619226\/\">has been tapped<\/a> to head up the Sarajevo Film Festival jury this year, with the event running Aug. 14-21, alongside director of the European Film Academy Matthijs Wouter Knol, Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019 producer Athina Rachel Tsangari, filmmaker\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/oscars-2026-croatia-fiume-o-morte-interview-populism-1236415461\/\">Igor Bezinovi\u0107<\/a>\u00a0and actress Sara Klimoska.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWatson will also receive the prestigious Honorary Heart of Sarajevo, also being presented to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/asghar-farhadi-honorary-heart-sarajevo-film-festival-iran-1236650798\/\">Asghar Farhadi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/diego-luna-honorary-heart-of-sarajevo-award-film-festival-1236657048\/\">Diego Luna<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/woody-harrelson-honorary-heart-of-sarajevo-film-festival-1236662872\/\">Woody Harrelson<\/a> at this installment. \u201cBecause it is an award tied to the city, it doesn\u2019t have to be specifically about Sarajevo, but [about] representing similar values or understanding the world of cinema,\u201d Marjanovi\u0107 tells <em>The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>about how the team selects their Honorary Heart recipients ahead of the 32nd edition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe fest continues to spotlight a wealth of regional talent, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/sarajevo-film-festival-competition-line-up-films-bosnia-1236654847\/\">competition features<\/a> from Zvonimir Juri\u0107 (<em>Small Things<\/em>), Ur\u0161a Menart (<em>Everything That\u2019s Wrong With You<\/em>), Kosara Miti\u0107 (<em>17<\/em>) and Dina Duma (<em>Skateboarding Is Not For Girls<\/em>). They\u2019re still balancing that with a glitzier, Hollywood-skewed lineup that includes Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski\u2019s <em>Fatherland <\/em>with Sandra H\u00fcller (set to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/sandra-huller-fatherland-sarajevo-film-pawel-pawlikowski-1236639626\/\">open the festival<\/a>), as well as Luna\u2019s <em>Ashes<\/em> and Andrey Zvyagintsev\u2019s\u00a0Cannes-premiering <em>Minotaur<\/em>. And, of course, the festival\u2019s rich, cultural history will be honored with the closing-night film, a screening of the Oscar-winning, newly restored <em>No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>, with Harrelson\u2019s 1997 feature <em>Welcome to Sarajevo<\/em> also set to screen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tBelow, Marjanovi\u0107 teases what\u2019s to come from the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival. He talks about the success of the Open Air Premiere Programs, why the CineLink industry lineup helps to underline the importance of Sarajevo\u2019s place on the festival circuit, and the fascinating origin story that still looms large over everyone passionate about this festival: \u201c[We] realized [the power of] communicating through culture and communicating through cinema with the outside world, because Sarajevo was so closed and besieged. That understanding is, I think, what makes this festival really important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Jovan, how long have you been in charge?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWell, I\u2019ve been with the festival for a very long time. Since I was 19, and I\u2019m 46 now. (<em>Laughs<\/em>.) So that\u2019s been pretty much all my life. But I\u2019ve been in charge for the past four years. This will be my fifth edition at the helm alone \u2014\u00a0there were another two editions before that as a co-director.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>It\u2019s safe to say you care a lot about this film festival.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tOh, absolutely! And I\u2019m not alone. A lot of the team has been with the festival for a long time. But at the same time, we always have young people coming up through the ranks and taking over, and it\u2019s been like that since the very beginning. It was always a close group of friends around the festival. We\u2019re not an institutional body or government-owned body. We\u2019re, let\u2019s say, a non-profit based on an association of citizens. That\u2019s the legal framework. So it\u2019s really up to us, you know? We are our own, and it\u2019s really important to have a group of people who care for what they do and have been nurturing it since day one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t[The Sarajevo Film Festival] really came from a difficult place. This festival came [during] war and siege and a complete lack of\u2026 everything \u2014 what Sarajevo went through in the \u201990s. When I say everything, I mean food and electricity. It\u2019s a really specific origin story for a festival, but then [we] realized [the power of] communicating through culture and communicating through cinema with the outside world, because Sarajevo was so closed and besieged. That understanding is, I think, what makes this festival really important.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1920px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((1080\/1920)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FotoJet-2026-08-14T094542.430.jpg?w=1920\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"1080\" width=\"1920\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Danis Tanovi\u0107\u2019s \u2018No Man\u2019s Land\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Everett Collection<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>How does the festival continue to honor the history of Sarajevo, the Bosnian War, through its programming?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tI like to think that it\u2019s in the DNA of the festival first and foremost. Somehow, you see things through that prism and understand the world through that prism and try to take important lessons. On the other side, this year there are two films that are coming back after a couple of decades [away from] the festival. We are closing with <em>No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>. It\u2019s been 25 years since we showed it last time, and it\u2019s a Bosnian film that won the best <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/international\/\" id=\"auto-tag_international_1\" data-tag=\"international\">international<\/a> Oscar. But it really was a film that changed a lot of things [for] cinema in Bosnia, and put [the country] on the international stage. That\u2019s the closing film of the festival with [director] Danis Tanovi\u0107 and the team in attendance, so I think it\u2019s going to be very emotional.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThere\u2019s also Woody Harrelson, who is receiving the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo, and we wanted to show the film that he shot here. So we\u2019re honoring him not just with the Heart, but with the screening of Michael Winterbottom\u2019s <em>Welcome to Sarajevo<\/em>, a film actually shot back in 1996, just a year after the siege was lifted. Both films [<em>Welcome to Sarajevo <\/em>and <em>No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>] are actually not present that much on streaming. They\u2019re hard to find, for various reasons\u2026 Canal+ in France has restored <em>No Man\u2019s Land <\/em>fully, so it\u2019s an opportunity to screen the brand new, digital 4K restoration of that film. <em>Welcome to Sarajevo<\/em>, sadly, did not go through that restoration, but we\u2019re going to screen it in 35mm, which has its own magic to it. Other than that, the festival has programs that are human rights-focused and focused on dealing with the past. The spirit of the festival is really in cooperation. Especially regional cooperation. It connects this legacy of war and division. I think the role of the festival was to build bridges between filmmakers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Is that how you would describe the ethos of a festival like Sarajevo? These mid-tier festivals can have a really important cultural impact, especially in European cinema. What kind of conversations do you want to prompt?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIt\u2019s a festival that really has a reason to exist. But that\u2019s not enough on its own. There needs to be a clear concept of the festival, and our concept has pretty quickly evolved around filmmakers from our region. We wanted to be geographically focused because of this turbulent history and because of the need to be a bridge between very specific territories [in] the Balkans. It\u2019s a myriad of smaller countries with a lot of smaller languages, with a lot of history, but it\u2019s a powerful mix in the end, and I think the festival serves as a common place for filmmakers and cinemas from many of these countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWe\u2019re also a big festival for the city and for the country, where people want to see the best of cinema from elsewhere \u2014 arthouse cinema, conversational pieces, and you want to see them as soon as possible. This is a showcase of the best films to come out this year up until now\u2026 And there\u2019s no other festival in the world that shows more films from this part of the world than Sarajevo. You won\u2019t see that many films from this part of the world in Berlin or in Cannes or in Venice. Then they have their home here in a way. We are a premier festival for films coming from this part of the world, and then there\u2019s the whole industry side of things that\u2019s also organized around [that], creating an ecosystem based around cinema from this region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>How do you balance those projects with the industry lineup?<\/strong> <strong>Some big stars come to Sarajevo, but it\u2019s also a great networking opportunity.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tTrue. And that\u2019s one of the key things. It has grown organically, the CineLink Industry Days [program]. We started it some 25 years ago, so the festival and the industry section grew together in a way. The festival was always more audience-oriented. But then, when we introduced the competition sections, which are focused on regional cinema, suddenly those gained industry attention as well. So I think there is the question is of, as you said, balance \u2014 finding the equilibrium between the two. And I think once you have built an ecosystem that functions, then [one] feeds into the other. A lot of the execs who come here, they maybe have had films at the festival before, [or] they will have them in the future, and a lot of the projects that are at script stage will end up participating in CineLink to [try] fundraise and promote them. Some of them will go on and premiere elsewhere. Others will premiere with us. It\u2019s a lot of meticulous work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Those CineLink sessions are really wide-ranging\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe talks are great. Some speakers I\u2019m really looking forward to hearing. Over the years, there\u2019ve been so many different initiatives that then sprang out of these talks, which is another amazing thing. [They have been] directed either at gender equality or completely business[-focused]. It\u2019s important to be a meeting point, and Sarajevo is really a meeting point. People feel that they can meet each other here. It\u2019s kind of buzzing \u2014 the city is not too big, it\u2019s not too small either. So there\u2019s enough space. But at the same time, you can feel the festival everywhere in the city. This atmosphere, I think, adds to people being more open to exploring different futures. So the talks are inspirational in my view.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You have a really broad mix of Honorary Heart recipients this year. I\u2019m curious to know how exactly you decide who to honor, and why it\u2019s important to have some high-profile Hollywood names in the list.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWell, just looking at the list, there is a thread. The award is called the Heart of Sarajevo, and it really has to do with the city and embracing these people. Emily Watson has been coming to the festival for the past 25 years [or so]. <em>Breaking the Waves<\/em> was the film that won the second Sarajevo Film Festival before we had the regional focus. She won our hearts back then with that film. And then she kept coming back. She was here, pregnant with her daughter, and now she\u2019s coming with her as a 20-something-year-old! So it\u2019s pretty emotional to welcome her back, and she\u2019s gonna head our jury and dive into the selection of films from this part of the world. She\u2019s going to work fantastically with her fellow jurors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAsghar Farhadi was head of the jury in Sarajevo a few years ago, and when you discuss films with someone like him, you build a connection and an understanding of how we see cinema, what he sees, what we like. That\u2019s another strong bond. I\u2019m saying this in addition to their careers, which are all exceptional. Diego Luna\u2026 The people from Mexican and Spanish cinema, from Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal to Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n. Alfonso was actually here for the first Sarajevo Film Festival ever, back in 1995. In the middle of the war, he came to show <em>A Little Princess<\/em> to the children of Sarajevo. And <em>Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n<\/em> is maybe one of the films that defined the generation of the early 2000s, both for cinema-goers and people making films. Alfonso [is] the leader of that generation, with Diego and Gael\u2026 And I already told you about Woody Harrelson. He shot a film here back in 1996 and hasn\u2019t been back since. It\u2019s amazing to welcome him back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>So it\u2019s important that these recipients have a special connection to Sarajevo?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWell, it just so happens [that way]. That\u2019s not what we award. It really is about the respect for their work in cinema first and foremost. Because it is an award tied to the city, it doesn\u2019t have to be specifically about Sarajevo, but [about] representing similar values or understanding the world of cinema. So we need to be close, maybe without ever meeting each other, but through work and worldviews and world values. That\u2019s the key.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>I know you can\u2019t show any favoritism, but are there any projects you\u2019re particularly excited about this year, maybe out of competition?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tYes. Last year, we opened a new section called Open Air Premieres. This has really grown quickly. We have it at a very prominent venue, a thousand-seater outdoor [theater] with a view of the beautiful Sarajevo City Hall. These films are [typically] something that was missing from the overall mix [or] more popular films from the region [such as <em>No Good Men<\/em>, <em>Ashes<\/em>, <em>Minotaur<\/em>]. Stuff that\u2019s more audience-driven, that can communicate to a bigger crowd. We [also] gave [the Open Air Premiere selection] a new award this year, the Audience Award, that comes with about 20,000 euros in marketing through Cineplexx, so that\u2019s really exciting. I hope the addition of more popular choices for audiences can complete this regional selection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIn our summer screen section, we have a lot of the best films of the year from Berlin, from Cannes, from last year\u2019s Venice Film Festival. In both the Midnight Screenings and Kinoscope, there are a lot of new voices in cinema, a lot of genre-bending stuff. So I\u2019m sure that a lot of the audience will drop in for that. We are opening with <em>Fatherland <\/em>from Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski and I think it\u2019s going to be a great opening. It\u2019s exactly the film that fits the profile of the festival. And <em>No Man\u2019s Land<\/em>, as I said. There are great films in between that I\u2019m really looking forward to: the Berlinale opener <em>No Good Men<\/em>, the Afghani film. I think it will resonate with the Bosnian audience very much. <em>Palestine 36<\/em> from Annemarie Jacir, also something the audience will want and need to see. Then there\u2019s <em>Minotaur <\/em>from Andrey Zvyagintsev, which carries a lot of weight in terms of what the story is, the corruption it depicts. I\u2019m really looking forward to the entire Open Air program this year. It\u2019s 3,500 seats and a huge screen and a really special place to see films.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<em>The 2026 Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 14-21.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jovan Marjanovi\u0107 is aware just how special the Sarajevo Film Festival is. He would know, having worked for the Bosnian festival since he was just 19. Marjanovi\u0107 is 46 now, and comes into his fifth edition as the event\u2019s sole director with buckets of confidence in what this fest has to offer European cinema. Sarajevo&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Jovan-Marjanovic-Sarajevo-Film-Festival.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}