From July 6 to 12, Sarajevo will host the WARM Festival, a seven-day program that, through art, journalism and conversations, opens up issues of contemporary conflicts, memories and narratives related to them. Gathering authors who work at the intersection of war reporting, documentary and artistic practice, the festival creates a space where individual testimony is transformed into a broader political and ethical discourse.
The festival will be opened tonight at 20:00 at the Meeting Point in China, while the WARM Academy, an educational program that gathers international experts throughout the week through lectures, workshops, masterclasses and discussions, will also start on the same day.
As a city that carries the experience of siege and war in its history, Sarajevo, within the framework of the WARM Festival, goes beyond the role of host and becomes a space where, through art, journalism and public dialogue, the ways in which we understand the past and contemporary global conflicts are reexamined.
The exhibition program forms the backbone of the festival and includes six exhibitions at several locations in the city. The program opens with the exhibition “Witnesses” by Nusret Pašić at the Academy of Fine Arts, while Shedding the Veils by Nariman El-Mofty will be presented at 15 locations in the city. Two large productions will be staged in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina – IRAN 2026: A Chronicle and SCARS, which map the political and humanitarian realities of Iran and Ukraine through photography, archival material and contemporary narratives. There is also the collective exhibition Sacrifice Zones, created within the framework of the WARM Academy, and GAZA: The Chronicle of a Genocide by Ali Jadallah in the building of the Red Cross Society, a poignant photographic testimony from Gaza.
The film program brings a selection of new documentaries and original films about war, displacement, propaganda and resistance. As part of the WARM Movie Nights program, the audience will be able to watch the films “All That’s Left of You”, “TRACES”, “Orwell: 2+2=5”, “Time Machine Maidan”, “American Doctor” and “The President’s Cake”, which bring stories from Palestine, Ukraine, Iraq and other contemporary crisis areas through different author’s approaches.
In addition to the exhibitions and film program, the festival also brings numerous conversations with authors, panel discussions, lectures, book presentations, workshops, public debates, special events such as a tribute to the French photojournalist Antonio Lallican, as well as the contents of the WARM Academy dedicated to contemporary war reporting, art and the culture of memory.
All festival contents are free and open to the public, the WARM Foundation announced.
