#Elena-Diana Smeu

[festivalists]

New Beginnings

In between the tragedy and the meme, 2020 has already proved to be different. This affected both the 26th  Sarajevo Film Festival as well as the 14th  edition of Talents Sarajevo, held online for the first time ever. Sure, under this year's theme NEW BEGINNINGS lie many old and well-tested elements, only this time we tried to build new structures out of them. Or to strengthen past bonds, which was the case with Sarajevo Talent Press' dedicated partner Goethe-Institut Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is not like there was much of a choice, for Zoom's flat grid has been omnipresent in the past months – as a new norm/al of sorts, and one that prompts a new understanding of this particular (also literal) merge between the reality and the moving image. Wonderful coincidence, as the online format allowed Kevin B. Lee to tune in from Berlin and discuss FILM CRITICISM ON SCREENS. Our second Goethe-Institut invitee, Jacqueline Nsiah, also joined in from Germany and opened the horizons even wider, by taking us on A PERSONAL(ISED) JOURNEY THROUGH SUB-SAHARAN CINEMA.

Mentored again by Dana Linssen and Yoana Pavlova, the 2020 all-girl team worked slightly differently this year – the five participants produced one, longer film review, paired with an “audiovisual diary” or “impression.” In addition, their opinions and surmises about the direction we are all headed to were quite enriching, yet there are only so many zrinks in an online festival...

Dina Pokrajac, Croatia

What primarily attracted me to film is what Barthes calls “mythologizing of the myth” – the possibility of re-using images that are known to us as part of dominant mythologies in order to speak about ourselves, our lives, and the world we live in from our own perspective.

film review of EXILE / EXIL (2020), dir. Visar Morina - Competition Features

Elena-Diana Smeu, Romania

How liberating is to write about what you love after days of self-isolation sentenced me to a slightly different way of being: one that permitted me to watch dozens of films, but didn’t allow me to share my emotions and thoughts with other people.

film review of THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT’S A RESURRECTION (2019), dir. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese – Kinoscope

Savina Petkova, Bulgaria

Propelled by my Philosophy degree, I started reading film theory and being enchanted by the intertwined nature of reality and fiction, forever in love with cinema as the only tool of representation of memory.

film review of ALL THE PRETTY LITTLE HORSES / OLA TA MIKRA OMORFA ALOGA (2020), dir. Michalis Konstantatos - Competition Features

Tamara Tica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

To me, the true challenge is to be fair in respecting the hard work put into making films, and offering fair, nuanced, and thoughtful reflections.

film review of MARE (2020), dir. Andrea Štaka – Competition Features

Veronika Zakonjšek, Slovenia

There is something healing about films, in how they give us insight into worlds unknown; into perspectives different to our own that send us on a journey of introspection and self-reflection.

film review of HOLD ME RIGHT (2020), dir. Danijela Stajnfeld – Documentary Competition