Sarajevo FF Documentary Competition 2025

Rada Šešić, the programmer of the Competition Programme – Documentary Film, included 20 films in the competition programme; 12 feature-length and 8 short documentary films, four of which will have a world premiere, four international, 10 films will have a regional premiere and two films will have a Bosnian premiere. In addition, one film has been selected for the out-of-competition programme and will have an international premiere.

“Selection inevitably reflects a complex socio-political situation, but also shows the enviable resilience of documentary creativity with the continuous emergence of interesting new authors. More than half of the titles in this year’s programme reflect the need to reconceptualize human relationships as a particularly necessary value. It is interesting that in most films in these gloomy times, or precisely because of this, the authors celebrate the power of love as the strongest driver of life, whether they are family or war stories. What is especially valuable is that even through these seemingly only family stories, we learn a lot about the complex conditions of life in a particular environment,” Šešić said.

Awards:

HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM 
Award in the amount of €4,000, sponsored by the Government of Switzerland

AN OSCAR® QUALIFYING FILM

HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILM 
Award in the amount of €2,000

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE 
Award in the amount of €2,500


1. BOSNIAN KNIGHT / BOSANSKI VITEZ, Tarik Hodžić (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, 2025, 79 min.) – World premiere
2. I SAW A ‘SUNO’ / SUNO DIKHLEM, KATALIN BARSONY(Hungary, Belgium, 2025, 92 min.) – World premiere
3. KITE / CHARTAETOS, Thanos Psichogios (Greece, 2025, 15 min.) – World premiere
4. STEEL HOTEL SONG, Bojan Stojčić (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2025, 19 min.) – World premiere
5. LETTERS / PISMA, Aysel Küçüksu (Bulgaria, 2025, 11 min.) -International premiere
6. MY DAD’S LESSONS / LEKCIJE MOG TATE, Dalija Dozet (Croatia, 2025, 62 min.) – International premiere
7. RED SLIDE / CRVENI TOBOGAN, Nebojša Slijepčević (Croatia, 2025, 27 min.) –  International premiere 
8. THIRD WORLD / TREĆI SVIJET, Arsen Oremović (Croatia, 2025, 101 min.) – International premiere
9. CUBA & ALASKA, Yegor Troyanovsky (Ukraine, France, Belgium, 2025, 93 min.) – Regional premiere
10. DIVIA, Dmytro Hreshko (Ukraine, Poland, The Netherlands, USA, 2025, 79 min.) – Regional premiere
11. DREAMERS: PEOPLE OF THE LIGHT / XƏYALPƏRƏSTLƏR: İŞIĞIN UŞAQLARI, Imam Hasanov (Azerbaijan, 2025, 86 min.) – Regional premiere
12. EVERYTIME YOU LEAVE, YOU ARE BORN AGAIN / SVAKI PUT KAD ODEŠ, PONOVO SE RAĐAŠ, Mladen Bundalo (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, 2025, 24 min.) – Regional premiere
13. I BELIEVE THE PORTRAIT SAVED ME / MUA BESOJ MË SHPËTOJ PORTRETI, Alban Muja (Kosovo*, The Netherlands, 2025, 10 min.) – Regional premiere
14. IN HELL WITH IVO, Kristina Nikolova (Bulgaria, USA, 2025, 80 min.) – Regional premiere
15. MILITANTROPOS, Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozgoviy (Ukraine, Austria, France, 2025, 111 min.) – Regional premiere
16. OUR TIME WILL COME / UNSERE ZEIT WIRD KOMMEN, Ivette Löcker (Austria, 2025, 105 min.) – Regional premiere
17. THE MEN’S LAND / KACEBIS MITSA, Mariam Bakacho Khatchvani (Georgia, Hungary, 2025, 15 min.) – Regional premiere
18. SLET 1988, Marta Popivoda (Serbia, Germany, France, 2025, 22 min.) – Regional premiere
19. 9-MONTH CONTRACT, Ketevan Vashagashvili (Georgia, Bulgaria, Germany, 2025, 77 min.) – B&H premiere
20. TATA, Lina Vdovîi, Radu Ciorniciuc (Romania, Germany, The Netherlands, 2025, 82 min.) – B&H premiere
21. OHO FILM, Damjan Kozole (Slovenia, Croatia, 2025, 93 min.) – International premiere, out of competition

The festival takes place August 15 – 22.

Del din kærlighed
Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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