Except the success in making unique gala atmosphere in town once again, last week's 9th Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) has proven to be the leading film festival in the region and the largest gathering of regional cinematography.
One thing is clear, Oscar Award for Danis Tanovic's 'No Mans Land' stirred the things up and gave huge impulse to Bosnian film makers who now became more interesting to international film producers.
As the result, two great motion pictures - feature films debuts of Pjer Zalica and Srdjan Vuletic - are made this year. Together with 2002 'Remake' by Dino Mustafic that should make a fine score for a film industry of a small, down-the-road, country.
Sarajevo Film Festival: 'Metalac' Open-Air Cinema
Golden Valley
Done in co-production with Austrian partners, "Gori Vatra" (Fuse) by Pjer Zalica is overall winner of this years SFF.
Reading the press reactions and actually speaking with the lucky ones who (after hours of cueing in front of the box-office) managed to see one of three screenings of the movie, it seams to be a real top runner with very interesting story and a movie with good chances of international success. A piece of film definitely worth checking out.
Srdjan Vuletic's "Ljeto u zlatnoj dolini" (The Summer in the Golden Valley) is a brilliant and exciting movie and all together much more interesting phenomenon.
Whilst "Fuse" like many other regional films focus on non- or sub- urban, alcohol'n'folk music, side of life, this is the first Bosnian post-war movie set flat on Sarajevo concrete, telling story about rime-throwing, glue-sniffing, hip-hop teens carrying guns and dealing with real life situations.
In simple words, it's a kind of movie we were waiting for done in such style which appeals more to the urban generation.
With fair dose of ghetto attitude "The Summer in the Golden Valley" is based on simple story about crooked cops, teens struggling with life and growing up to fast, 'streat charm', love and life in Sarajevo 'hoods'.
Speaking about the 'hoods', Srdjan Vuletic didn't have much problems finding proper filming locations when decided to set the whole film in one block of Grbavica housing projects.
Srdjan Vuletic
Film soundtrack, with a title track done by Bosnian hip-hoper No. 1: Edo Maajka, is done in eclectic style, giving necessary beats to the film plot and additional bass to boost the action.
Apart from the Edo Maajka dope beat title track, selected sounds kind of miss the true underground style which can now be found on Bosnian scene in abundance.
Instead of fresh cut and raw soundtrack of todays Sarajevo streets, someone went for worn-out 3 year old Dzihan&Kamien standards, missing the whole point of the street sounds.
Still, even with false etno schmeck, "Summer in the Golden Valley" is more than plesant and very wellcome sound clash to mentioned turbo-folk currents in Bosnian and regional cinema.
Edo Maajka:
"Give us back Elvis, Hase and Bruce Lee,
You can have the silicons, A-Bomb and CIA..."
The rest of the films that I managed to see at this year's film festival, like Japanese "Wild Berries", German "Identity Kills" and UK "Calendar Girls" were all nothing but boring tries to show the flair every day life in those countries. Another UK movie, Stephen Fears "Dirty Pretty Things" stand up from the rest, but just for a bit.
The true refreshment and certainly the most interesting short movie I saw in the recent times is Austrian animated cut-and paste chase Fast Film.
The animated story of scenes from 300 classic movies and familiar faces from the 'oldies' all on a speeding train, which took author 2 years to make, gives excitement, humor, action and thrill - all in 14 minutes.
Sarajevo | 26.8.2003 | 10:54 
