Tuesday, 26 August 2008

14th Sarajevo Film Festival opens with `Snow'

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina �

The 14th Sarajevo Film Festival kicked off Friday with a screening of Aida Begic's debut feature "Snow," about life in a village in postwar Bosnia.


The movie was honored in May in a Cannes competition overseen by critics.


Over nine days, the Sarajevo festival - born in a sandbag-protected basement during the Bosnian war - will testify 174 movies from 40 countries. Last year the international event, which aims to backing and promote cinema and authors in Southeast Europe, attracted some 100,000 people.


This year's festival will welcome Kevin Spacey and Charlie Kaufman, as well as regional stars and filmmakers.


The festival started in 1994 in besieged Sarajevo when a few youth people tried to offer citizens some sense of normal life. Founder Miro Purivatra, wHO before the war unionized cultural events in the city, view that residents were hungry for polish as well as for food and organized a showing of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."


During the jut powered by a author, the fistful of viewing audience wondered whether the levelheaded of the shooting came from the loudspeakers or from the battles outdoor the basement.


International media reported about the unusual case in the middle of a warfare zone. Several international filmmakers thought the idea should be supported and the next yr shipped boxes of moving picture tapes to Sarajevo with food deliveries.


Partially thanks to the festival, Bosnia's film has begun to boom despite the country's impoverishment. The country has since seen its filmmakers gain prestigious film awards care the foreign-film Oscar for Danis Tanovic's "No Man's Land" in 2002 and the Golden Bear in Berlin for Jasmila Zbanic's "Grbavica" in 2006.










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