Sarajevo Film Festival ends with award ceremony

By Talha Ozturk

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) – The Bosnia and Herzegovina's Sarajevo Film Festival ended Friday with an award ceremony after more than 230 films from 70 countries were screened.

Elene Naveriani's "Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry" won the Best Feature Film award while Philip Sotnychenko won the best director award for "La Palisiada."

Jovan Ginic won best actor for her role in"Lost Country, the best actress was given to Ekaterine Chavleishvili for Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry.

The documentary award was given to director Nemanja Vojinovic's "Bottlemen" and Sara Jurincic's "Valerija" won the short documentary award.

Director Kumjana Novakova received the Human Rights Award for "Silence of Reason" and director Gergo Somogyvari received the Special Jury Award for the movie "Fairy Garden.”

Flora Anna Buda won the short film for her movie, "27," while director Anna Gyimesi won the student film award for her "Falling."

Türkiye's public broadcaster, TRT competed with three award-winning films: Kanto, Club Zero, La Chimera and Blaga's Lessons.

Kanto, by director Ensar Altay, tells the story of an elderly woman who suddenly disappeared but her disappearance was not noticed. Kanto was awarded the Cinelink Impact Award in the "Work in Progress" category.

Forty-nine films in the feature films, short films, documentary films, and student films categories competed for the "Heart of Sarajevo" award -- the name given to the awards.

The festival began 29 years ago to make the city a center of culture and art and help heal the memories of the Bosnian War in the 1990s.

Past festival attendees included luminaries such as Robert de Niro, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu, Morgan Freeman and Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

The festival began Aug. 11.