On the first night of the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival, the screening of the opening film “Kiss the Future” by Nenad Cicin-Sain was marked by the arrival of surprise guest and film crew members Bono and The Edge of U2, a press release by the organisers said.

The band members, accompanied by their wives Ali Hewson and Morleigh Steinberg, as well as model and activist Christy Turlington, walked the red carpet along with the film crew.

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“Bono’s link to Sarajevo and the Sarajevo Film Festival has persisted for a number of years”, the SFF press release said, adding that, after visiting the Festival in 2000 and 2021, the singer frequently came to Sarajevo to support it.

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“Bono’s work is also marked by his activism — U2’s performance at London’s Wembley stadium featured in “Kiss the Future” was exactly 30 years ago today. This year, the Sarajevo Film Festival commemorates the 30th anniversary of the First Apollo War Cinema, when the city was under siege and audiences gathered to watch films in the basement of the Academy of Dramatic Arts, thus celebrating a jubilee tied to the very inception of the Festival”, it said.

Inspired by the local resistance in besieged Sarajevo, American aid worker Bill Carter reached out to U2 to see if they could help raise global awareness about the conflict. The band agreed and, throughout the summer of 1993, their ZOO TV featured live satellite interviews with locals in city. The band pledged to perform in the city once the conflict was over.

“Kiss the Future” follows the story of this promise and the post-war concert in which, on September 23rd 1997, U2 performed in front of more than 45.000 fans in the liberated city. This concert still lies in the collective memory of the people of Sarajevo, as proof that they not only survived the siege, but also that in the midst of the horrors produced by the darkest impulses, music and art can be acts of rebellion and resistance, the SFF press release said.