9 days for film lovers in Sarajevo

'I Love Film' is slogan of the 19th Sarajevo Film Festival that will open on Friday, 16th August, night and close on 24th August. "With slogan 'I Love Film' we want to recall the old times and how the movies were loved by the audience," Director of the SFF Mirsad Purivatra said. He, and group of films lovers, almost 20 years ago, made the first Sarajevo Film Festival, dreaming about big film festivals. The dream came through and SFF became one of the most important festivals at least in Europe, with movie stars from all around the world coming to Sarajevo year after year, and thousands of spectators in theaters. This year, 214 movies will be screened all over the nine movie theaters - some of them open air - in Sarajevo. Many of them are made by local and regional directors, including the one by Oscar Winner Danis Tanovic who won the Golden Bear at this year's festival in Berlin. Another film made this year in Sarajevo is 'With Mom' by Faruk Loncarevic. It is a movie about a girl who is trying to find a way to deal with her just discovered sexuality and her mother's terminal illness. This movie will be shown as part of a Competition Programe, that is a core program of the festival, hosting films from southeastern Europe as well as from Caucasus region. Open Air program, the most popular one that is performed in one of the biggest open-air cinemas in the region with about 2,500 seats, will show nine movies this year, including 'Circles' by Serbian author Srdan Dragojevic. The movie was awarded at a number of film festivals around the world, including Berlin and Sundance. It is a story about a young soldier who saves civilian of different nationality during the war in Bosnia. Every year, SFF host number of famous international actors. This year it will be Armand Assante, Danny Glover, David Gordon Green, Emile Hirsch. They will be Festival's guests along side many people from the film industry, including representatives of festivals in Locarno, Berlin, Tribeca, and Edinburg... Tribute to, a program that is dedicated to one director only, this year will show movies by Christi Puiu, one of the most important European directors today. Puiu, from Romania, will come to Sarajevo, too. This year SFF has two new partners - Doha film institute and The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. This new partnership brought some of the very important movies made last year in the Middle East, including the movie 'A World Not Ours' by Lebanese director Mahdi Fleifel. This film was awarded the best international movie at Edinburg film festival this year. Winners in all categories will be awarded with Heart of Sarajevo award.