Ukraine Director Sergei Loznitsa Jury President

Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa (Two Prosecutors) will serve as the jury president for the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival next month.

The other members of the jury of the competition program – feature film are Serbian actor Dragan Mićanović, Romanian director, writer and actor Emanuel Pârvu, Bosnian-Dutch director and writer Ena Sendijarević, and Berlin International Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle, who previously ran the BFI London Film Festival. 
 
“Loznitsa joins a rich constellation of film auteurs who have previously presided over the Sarajevo Film Festival jury in past editions,” organizers said on Friday. They inclyde Mike Leigh (2004), Jasmila Žbanić (2006), Jeremy Irons (2007), Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2008), Ari Folman (2011), Danis Tanović (2013), Béla Tarr (2014), Michel Franco (2017), Asghar Farhadi (2018), Ruben Östlund (2019), Michel Hazanavicius (2020), Mia Wasikowska (2023), and Paul Schrader (2024). 
 
The Sarajevo fest winners will be unveiled during the awards ceremony on Friday, Aug. 22. 

Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino is this year’s recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award. The 31st Sarajevo Film Festival takes place Aug. 15-22. 

The world premiere of Dino Mustafić’s Bosnian dark comedy The Pavilion, set in a retirement home, will open the fest. The screenplay was written by Viktor Ivančić, with Emir Imamović Pirke as co-writer. 
 
Mićanović (Coriolanus, Rocknrolla) is known for his work in film, theater, and TV. Pârvu has acted in films, collaborating with key Romanian New Wave directors. His movie Three Kilometers to the End of the World premiered at Cannes 2024 in competition, received the Queer Palm, and became Romania’s international feature Oscar entry. The film also won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film at last year’s Sarajevo Film Festival. 

Sendijarević’s debut feature Take Me Somewhere Nice (2019) won Sarajevo’s Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film. Her second feature, Sweet Dreams, was the Dutch submission for the 2024 international feature Oscar race.