Sarajevo Film Festival closes its 31st edition with awards ceremony

This year’s top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film, went to Winds, Talk to Me by Serbian director Stefan Đorđević. Ivana Mladenović won Best Director for Sorella di Clausura, while the Best Actor award went to Andrija Kuzmanović. The Best Actress prize was shared by Sarah Al Saleh, Aline Juhart, Mina Milovanović and Mia Skrbinac for their ensemble performance in Fantasy.

Other highlights included Ivet Loker’s Our Time Will Come, which won the documentary competition, and Natalia Mirzoyan’s Winter in March, awarded Best Short Film. Special honors recognized films that addressed pressing social themes: Hana Jušić’s God Will Not Help received the Gender Equality Award, while Georgi M. Unkovski’s DJ Ahmet won the Youth Perspective Prize.

In total, 227 films and series from 65 countries were screened across 22 program sections. Fifty films competed for the Heart of Sarajevo in the feature, documentary, short, and student categories. Many of them were world or regional premieres, cementing SFF’s role as a launchpad for new voices from Southeast Europe.

As in previous years, Sarajevo also welcomed global names in cinema. Italian director Paolo Sorrentino was honored with a retrospective and a Tribute to program, while acting legends Stellan Skarsgård, Ray Winstone, and Willem Dafoe received the festival’s Honorary Heart of Sarajevo award for their outstanding contribution to the art of film. Their appearances drew large crowds and gave young filmmakers the chance to engage with some of the most respected figures in the industry.

Beyond the red carpet glamour, the city itself pulsed with festival energy. From morning coffees at the buzzing Festival Square to late-night debates in bars and streets, Sarajevo lived and breathed cinema. For locals and visitors alike, the festival transformed the city into a vibrant cultural stage.

Founded in 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo, the festival has always carried deep symbolic weight — born as an act of cultural resistance and now a bridge between East and West. Thirty years on, it stands as the premier showcase for cinema from Southeast Europe, while securing a firm place on the international festival map.