The Summer Screen programme of the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival boasts six excellent and genre-diverse films and offers a slate of the year’s best art-house films.
This years’ programme includes: AFIRE, ANATOMY OF A FALL, JOAN BAEZ I AM A NOISE, LA CHIMERA, PERFECT DAYS and ROBOT DREAMS.
AFIRE / ROTER HIMMEL
Germany, 2023, 103 min.
Director: Christian Petzold
Cast: Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs, Matthias Brandt
A small holiday house by the Baltic Sea. The days are hot, and it hasn’t rained in weeks. Four young people come together, friends old and new. As the parched forests around them begin to ignite, so do their emotions. Happiness, lust, and love; but also jealousy, resentment, and tensions. Meanwhile the forests burn. And before long, the flames arrive.
ANATOMY OF A FALL / ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE
France, 2023, 150 min.
Director: Justine Triet
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth, Saadia Bentaïeb, Camille Rutherford, Anne Rotger, Sophie Fillières
For the past year, Sandra, a German writer, her French husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he committed suicide or was killed. Samuel’s death is treated as suspicious, presumed a murder, and Sandra becomes the prime suspect. Little by little, the trial becomes not just an investigation of the circumstances of Samuel’s death, but an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel’s conflicted relationship.
JOAN BAEZ I AM A NOISE
United States, 2023, 113 min.
Director: Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O’Boyle
After a sixty-year-long career, Joan Baez, now eighty-two, goes on tour for the last time, bidding farewell not only to the stage but also to her role as a leading activist who took part in some of the world’s most significant civil rights struggles. In addition to Baez’s wonderful songs, her collaborations with Bob Dylan, and the public struggles that made her a living legend, the film sheds light on little Joanie, who was born to a mixed-race family and experienced racism firsthand; on Joan the young woman, whose success awakened dark demons within her; and on the mature Joan, as painful memories seep through the cracks of her immense charisma.
LA CHIMERA
Italy, France, Switzerland, 2023, 130 min.
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Cast: Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Alba Rohrwacher, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato
Everyone has their own Chimera, something they try but never manage to achieve. For the band of tombaroli, thieves of ancient grave goods and archaeological wonders, the Chimera means redemption from work and the dream of easy wealth. For Arthur, the Chimera looks like Benjamina, the woman he lost. To find her, Arthur challenges the invisible, searches everywhere, and goes inside the earth in search of the door to the afterlife of which myths speak. In an adventurous journey between the living and the dead, between forests and cities, between celebrations and solitudes, the intertwined destinies of these characters unfold, all in search of the Chimera.
PERFECT DAYS
Japan, 2023, 124 min.
Director: Wim Wenders
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano, Aoi Yamada, Yumi Aso, Sayuri Ishikawa, Tomokazu Miura, Min Tanaka
Hirayama seems entirely content with his simple life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside his very structured everyday routine, he enjoys a passion for music and books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveals more of his past. A deeply moving and poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us.
ROBOT DREAMS
Spain, France, 2023, 90 min.
Director: Pablo Berger
DOG lives in Manhattan and he’s tired of being alone. One day he decides to build himself a robot companion. Their friendship blossoms to the rhythm of 1980s New York City and they become inseparable. One summer night, DOG, with great sadness, is forced to abandon ROBOT at the beach. Will they ever meet again? ROBOT DREAMS is based on the graphic novel by Sara Varon.
The 29th Sarajevo Film Festival will take place from 11th to 18th of August 2023.
