The 14th edition of The Sarajevo Film Festival

The Sarajevo Film Festival is the premier and largest film festival in the Balkans, and is one of the largest in Europe. In 2007 the festival's programmes were visited by 100.000 people.

The festival has increasing importance for the relations between East and West, and in 12 years it has grown to be one of the most influential film festivals in southeast Europe. The Sarajevo Film Festival presents a wide programme selection of both competitive and non-competitive films. The main focus is the region of Southeast Europe. The open-air events (2,500 seats) are among the higlights of the festival, which also features children's program, short films, open air panorama, documentaries and regional program of feature films as well as short documentaries.

Sarajevo Film Festival was founded in 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo. It is held in August and shows First and second feature fiction films, international short, feature and animated films, as well as films of all genres from south-eastern Europe. General focus of the Sarajevo Film Festival is on regional production.

Participants of the Film Industry include 600 national and international film professionals but the festival also has 40,000 children and teenagers watching the films very year.

The festival aims to present important and innovative films of high artistic value made throughout the world. 180 international films are shown during the week and  Sarajevo Film Festival is one of the eleven festivals that can nominate a film for the award of "Europe's Best Short Film". In 2002, the Festival's choice of local Ahmed Imamovic's 10 Minuta won in Europe, and the 2001 winner, No Man's Land (Danis Tanović), was awarded an Oscar in the US. In 2004, the Best Movie Award was named "The Heart of Sarajevo".

Seventy percent of the films screen with the presence of the filmmakers, which has increased the festival's popularity. The organisers are doing their best to have a director or an actor available to join the screenings for Q&A sessions every year.

International celebrities that have visited the festival include Bono, Willem Dafoe, Gérard Depardieu, John Malkovich, Nick Cave, Susan Sontag, Emily Watson, Michael Moore, Juliette Binoche, Jeremy Irons, Vanessa Redgrave and even Coolio!

For more information, please see http://www.sff.ba/