Watch the best of the Sarajevo Film Festival online

The Sarajevo Film Festival has launched its 27th edition with a special online programme, as well as a handful of live screenings.

One hundred feature films, documentaries, and shorts are available to watch online for viewers in southeastern Europe, while 40 movies are also ready to be streamed worldwide.

The festival abandoned its plans to host a full programme of offline events after Bosnia was hit by a second coronavirus spike. The country has currently registered a total of 15,000 cases and 448 deaths, a fifth of which were recorded in the capital.

The Calvert Journal has picked three of the best feature films making their way to global audiences — perfect to watch online, wherever you are.

Focus, Grandma (2020)

The festival opens with the premiere of Focus, Grandma, a dark comedy taking place in Yugoslavia, April 1992, beside the deathbed of an elderly matriarch. But the family bickering, intrigue, and negotiations over the woman’s flat in Sarajevo ensure that grandma stays alive far longer than the doctor had predicted.

The Diary of Diana B. (2019)

This docu-fiction traces the life of the Austrian-born and Zagreb-based Diana Budisavljević, whose grassroots campaign ultimately saved the lives of more than 10,000 Serbian children who had been sent to concentration camps in 1941.

My Morning Laughter (2019)

My Morning Laughter tells the story of 30-year-old virgin Dejan, who decides to overturn his life spent with his alcoholic father and overbearing mother, and to carve his own path.

Sarajevo Film Festival takes place 14-20 August. Find out more and grab your online tickets here.