PROGRAM ANNOUNCED FOR OUR BHFF SPECIAL ONLINE EDITION - THE BEST OF BHFF: A RETROSPECTIVE FOR OUR TIMES TAKING PLACE APRIL 20TH - MAY 31ST

OUR EVERYDAY LIFE
Ines Tanović | Feature | 89 min

Family Sušić lives everyday Bosnian story. Father Muhamed (63) is employed in a reputable company; mother Marija (60) is retired. Son Saša (35), who spent the war in Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives with his parents, while their daughter Senada (40) lives in Slovenia. Their life begins to fall apart because of father's dissatisfaction after his company is sold on the stock exchange, Saša's negligent attitude towards work and family, Marija's breast cancer diagnose. When problems begin to line up Muhamed and Saša realize that actually only family is important, that it is man's last oasis

MEN DON'T CRY
Alen Drljević | Feature| 98 min

Bosnia and Herzegovina, fifteen years after the war. A group of middle-aged Yugoslav War veterans gather in a remote mountain hotel for an extended group-therapy session that unravels the complexities of their pasts.

THE FROG 
Elmir Jukić | Feature | 78 min

Zeko is a barber and war veteran suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. One day he invites his brother Braco and friend Svabo to Eid festivities. He intends to take advantage of the holiday mood and ask his brother, a gambler and alcoholic, to get back on the right path. When he realize that Braco does not have intention to change himself, he tries to force him. A violent conflict breaks out between them and Zeko starts to lose his ground. Alone, without his only friend and his brother, he decides to kill himself – until a young man, selling books door-to-door, suddenly arrives. 
*This film is only available for streaming in the United States.

MY AUNT IN SARAJEVO
Goran Kapetanović | Feature | 58 min

Zlatan, 50, has not been in Bosnia since he left the country as a war refugee, more than twenty-five years ago. His only contact with Bosnia consists in sending money to a woman who takes care of his old aunt. Zlatan’s daughter Anja, 18, who lives with her mother, wants to know more about her Bosnian roots, but every single time she meets Zlatan, he is not eager to tell her anything about Sarajevo or his life there. Anja decides to travel to Sarajevo to explore her roots. Zlatan tries to stop her, but surprisingly he finds himself in a taxi together with Anja, going towards the city of Sarajevo from the airport towards an emotional journey in search of their respective identity and their common history.

GREAT WALL OF CHINA
Aleksandra Odić | Short Narrative | 36 min

Bosnia, present day. On one afternoon, the 8 year old Maja visits her grandparents in the countryside. Her young aunt Ljilja lives there too. Ljilja is a rebellious artist, who doesn’t want to accept the suffocating lack of prospects in her country and is also Maja’s favorite playmate and role model. On this afternoon, Maja will suddenly become the only witness to Ljilja’s secret escape to Germany. Faced with the choice to tell on her aunt or to let her go, Maja takes a major new step in her own life. The boundaries of her childhood start to break apart.

VARIABLES 
Sabina Vajrača | Short Narrative | 24 min

15-year-old math whiz Nikola is offered an unexpected chance to escape war-torn Sarajevo when his math club receives an invitation to participate in the 1995 International Math Olympics in Canada. Nikola initially sees the invitation as a reward for his dedication to mathematics and his club in the midst of the siege of Sarajevo.  It is also a chance to experience teenage life outside of a war zone. But escape comes with a price: Nikola must face the possibility of leaving, and perhaps never again seeing, his mother and younger sister.  

REFUGEE 532 
Goran Kapetanović | Short Narrative | 14 min

The unaccompanied refugee Sevko, 12, tries to cope with his new life in Sweden. He is struggling between hope and despair, waiting for news from the war zone in Bosnia. Being bullied by the other young refugees, he decides to throw a party his own way.

DAMAGED GOODS 
Nermin Hamzagić | Short Narrative | 20 min

Tarik lives alone and works in the warehouse of a supermarket. He's lonely and kills time hanging around with two colleagues. New worker comes to the small shop next to the supermarket. Tarik likes her and secretly starts to draw on the glass of the shop, hidden by the night, away from the prying eyes of society in which any kind of emotion is a sign of weakness.

NOMOPHOBIA 
Ado Hasanović | Short Narrative | 14 min

Maria is about to finish cooking lunch when her daughter Jessica arrives home after school. Maria has just been to the parents-teachers meeting and feels totally disappointed by Jessica’s grades. Nevertheless, as soon as she tries to introduce the topic she ends up talking alone: the teenager is too busy texting with her best friend. Exasperated after the umpteenth try, the woman grabs her daughter’s phone and says she will not have it back until she will start studying in a serious way, prohibiting Facebook as well. Jessica, desperate, tries by any means necessary to take the phone back, in this realistic and spontaneous short film shot in a single take.

FINDING FAMILY 
Chris Leslie, Oggi Tomić | Documentary | 55 min

Abandoned at birth in war-torn Bosnia to a childhood plagued by near starvation, Oggi Tomic did not get the best start in life. Twenty seven years on, now happily married and settled in the UK, he receives the phone call that every orphan dreams of: his family have tracked him down and want to meet up. But as Oggi journeys home for an extraordinary reunion, he uncovers a chapter of family history he would sooner forget. Could these be the people who once tried to kill him?

THE INFIDEL 
Nejra Latić Hulusić | Documentary | 63 min

A young Bosnian, Dino, whose father moved his family from Bihać to a closed commune of the Islamic Wahhabi movement, is trying to rebuild his life after inadvertently giving a ride to a man who later perpetrated a terror attack on the American embassy in Sarajevo. After being accused of involvement in the attack and spending time in jail, Dino renounces his religion and returns to his hometown to start over. But, he struggles with rejection both from his community and his family, who now live in Syria.

THE MUSEUM OF FORGOTTEN TRIUMPHS

Bojan Bodružić | Documentary | 87 min

After being evacuated as a child in 1992, Vancouver-based filmmaker Bojan Bodružić returned to Sarajevo in 2000 and began to film his grandparents. Over the following years, he recorded their extraordinary life stories. Charming and spirited, the elderly couple eagerly share their experiences (starting with WW II and ending with the Bosnian War), even insisting that their grandson finish the film as they fall ill in their twilight years. A first-hand account of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, as well as a family portrait full of impressions of a country forever changed, the film collates an invaluable collection of memories—both personal and historical—into an affecting work.

TO BE FAR 
Samira Kameli, Sajra Subašić | Documentary | 9 min

In September 2017, Samira has traveled to Sarajevo from Iran. She is there for the first time, intending to make a documentary. Attempting to connect with the country and its people, she seeks out others who have traveled great distances to be there. Locating a refugee center, she hopes to find others who are in a similar situation, but all she finds are closed gates. Ultimately, Samira is allowed to film the center but not to speak to any of the people there.