Sarajevo FF True Stories & Your Life Without Me Premiere
Early departure from Hotel Europe, the classic Sarajevo hotel with a fabulous outdoor terrasse, an indoor swimming pool, a huge breakfast assortiment, with the same elderly waiters I have met year after year, indeed my wife and I feel at home here. Close to everything. Thanks for the invitation.
Early departure to the new venue for the industry part of the festival, Cinelink. To take part in the rehearsal for the True Stories presentation sunday (at 17.45). “It features seven carefully curated cases…” within the Dealing with the Past category that also includes a film program to be shown during the week on the other side of the street at the CinePlexx that has 8 cinema halls. As said in the catalogue about the True Stories Market it “facilitates a platform for sharing untold true stories, primarily from the Western Balkan countries to address the enduring consequences of past conflicts”. The mastermind behind Dealing with the Past is Masha Markovic, who this year has young efficient and warm-hearted Emina Kovacevic as producer with Croatian Robert Zuber as the skilled moderator of the presentation as well as being the trainer AND Serbian editor Natasa Damnjanovic, who is the one preparing excellent teasers to accompany the verbal pitch. My job was – coming from outside he region – to comment on the presentations. Curious to see the reaction of the filmmakers sunday afternoon – to whom the projects are pitched.
And then late afternoon to the big hall in Cineplexx to the world premiere of Hungarian “Your Life Without Me” by Anna Rubi, who had tickets for me and my wife. I knew the project from a workshop in Budapest two years ago and was already then convinced that the director had material for an important social documentary with charismatic elderlymothers to disabled kids, like Magdi with her 39 year old son Feri. One thing is the social relevance and the story, shot over 7 years, about Magdi and a group of other women in the same situation and with the same worry: What will happen to our grown-up kids, when we are no longer there – with a state care system that is inhuman. The women takes the state to court… the film catches the moments of daily life, goes with the women to court, characterises pain and joy – and does so with cinematic skills that gives the film many facets and a universal appeal. It´s simply a very good film!
After the film there was a long Q&A session conducted by Rada Sesic (PHOTO), the programmer of the documentary competition in which the film takes part. Rada Sesic did the moderation in a beautiful manner, giving the floor to the director to answer the many question, repeating the questions from the audience, translating from English to Bosnian, it´s an art to do so, Rada is a star simply! So important to have her in the international documentary community.
