Back Again: Reflecting on the 22nd Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival
It’s been a long while since my last blog post, but what better way to make my return than with a recap of my time at the 2026 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival? This year, I’m extremely privileged to be able to say that I was “promoted” into being the Social Media Coordinator, along with maintaining my duties of being on the Programming Team.
This year was also a little different logistically, since I now live in Seattle. The team would have understood if I maintained my role in a remote function, but I have so much love and passion for this festival that I made the decision to fly back for the week. I’m so glad that I did! Not only did I get to experience the wonderful atmosphere that BHFF always has, but I also got to witness in real time the effects of the work I did to promote the festival. I received many compliments on the social media channels this year, and several people had even said that they’d never known about the festival until they saw some posts show up in their feed on Instagram. That is one of the biggest compliments you could give a social media person, so I’m very proud of the work I and the rest of the social media team did!
This year, we screened 12 films – 3 feature length films, 3 short narrative films, and 6 documentaries (short and feature-length).
Pre-Festival
Before the festival even began, the BHFF team was hard at work trying to make it all come together. Thankfully for me, my work between the Programming Team and the Social Media Team intensified at different points in the lead-up so, while I was consistently busy the whole time, at no point was it truly overwhelming.
Let’s start with the Programming Team! I’m so grateful to be part of this team full of passionate individuals who are knowledgeable about film and who also bring in perspectives from various cultural backgrounds. These people are truly some of the smartest, kindest people that I’ve ever met. I believe that this wonderful group of people combined with an environment of high-level contribution and feedback is what leads BHFF to have such a great program year-after-year.
This year, our programming team went through a huge number of submissions – watching each film and taking the time to deliver thoughtful and intentional reviews of each submission. There were some really hard decisions made during this process but, as a small festival, we only have a limited number of slots available so those hard decisions must, unfortunately, be made.
As for my work with the Social Media Team, it was a little bit different this year, since I was now the official Social Media Coordinator. This role naturally came to me since I was already assisting with the social media in a support capacity, but the BHFF team liked the work I was doing enough to ask me to step into the Coordinator role. I won’t lie: at first, it was a little tough. Not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but because I was used to doing this role on my own. In previous social media roles, I was used to creating the plan as I saw fit, executing it as I saw fit, and not needing to spread out the work beyond myself (this did, of course, lead to the work becoming overwhelming at times, but I soon created a process for myself to mitigate this, so I became used to it.) Imagine now having to adjust to an environment where I was now: needing to answer to a leadership team who took a direct interest in the social media plan and outcomes, needing to be the head of an actual team of people and learn how best to spread out that work without diluting the messaging, and needing to make decisions with the intention to increase ticket sales and not just gain followers? Yeah, it was an adjustment.
However, even with all of this, and after a rocky start, I finally settled into the groove of things and social media started booming. Followers went up, views went up, likes went up, and – eventually – ticket sales went up too. The team and I are still evaluating whether social media had much of an actual impact on these sales, but so far on a purely subjective level, it seems like it did.
Festival: Day 1
On the first day of the festival, we screened Mirza Begović’s film TESTAMENT – and the turnout was great! It was nice to finally be back in person with the BHFF team and see the impact of our months-long work. This film is a comedy and is technically a sequel to another film that was very popular in Bosnia a couple of years ago. However, the way this sequel was written, is that it is like a standalone film, which is great for film festival audiences.
Festival: Day 2
On the second day of the festival, we had two screenings: Presentation 2 was for the film EASTERN WESTERN, and Presentation 3 was for CEASEFIRE / PREKID VATRE and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN / ŠTO TE NEMA
EASTERN WESTERN was a fascinating film for me and I’m very glad that we included it in our program. It truly is a unique film that incorporates the European East with the genre of the American Western – if you ever have a chance to view it, please do! This screening was followed by a fantastic Q&A with director Biliana Grozdanova and actor Igor Galijasevic.
CEASEFIRE and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN were two documentaries that focused on Srebrenica and telling those stories. CEASEFIRE telling the story of the continued trauma of Srebrenica survivors, and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN seeking to remember the lives lost. This screening was followed by an emotional – but incredibly important – Q&A with the producer and subject of WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, Aida Šehović.
Festival: Day 3
On the third day of the festival, we also had two presentations. Presentation 4 was co-sponsored by the New Yugoslav Studies Association and screened the film THE PARTISAN NECROPOLIS directed by Chris Leslie. Presentation 5 screened the documentary HOME GAME directed by Lidija Zelović. Both of these screenings were followed by Q&As with the directors.
THE PARTISAN NECROPOLIS is a documentary that takes a look at the importance and also the controversy surrounding the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar, while HOME GAME follows Lidija Zelović as she escapes the war in Bosnia and creates a new home in the Netherlands, all while experiencing parallels between the fall of Yugoslavia and some of the rhetoric coming out of Dutch politics.
Festival: Day 4
This is when things really got crazy! We had three presentations – one of them having sold an incredible amount of tickets – and the BHFF Golden Apple Awards at the end of it all.
Presentation 6 was our shorts presentation block, and it featured the films: NO BIG DEAL / NIŠTA STRAŠNO, ILLUMINATION / OSVJETLJAVANJE, LINT, and STEEL HOTEL SONG. We had worried for a little bit whether or not we had sold enough tickets for this one, but it was a higher turnout at the last minute than anticipated. Which is always a great thing! Whenever we have a shorts presentation we often struggle to fill those seats, but I don’t think that is an accurate reflection of the quality of these works. It is with the short films that the true hidden gems come out. We often see unique premises and important topics discussed in the short films that come out of Bosnia, so I think that its worth it to check out the shorts in the future if you have a chance. This screening was followed by a Q&A with director Bojan Stojčić and author Aleksandar Hemon.
Presentation 7 was the screening of the film THE PAVILION / PAVILJON. This film was actually the opening night film at the 2025 Sarajevo Film Festival where I had seen it for the first time. This film is hilarious, and offers a very intriguing premise – a group of seniors at an old person’s home are regularly abused, until they acquire illegal weapons and stage an armed rebellion in the home. This is the screening where we sold an incredible amount of tickets, the place was packed! We also had a Q&A after this screening with legendary actor Rade Šerbedžija.
Finally, our last presentation was a screening of the film GRANDPA GURU, which presents in an eclectic documentary style the continuity of the work of the band Kultur Shock with special emphasis on the interesting life, music and art of their singer and frontman Srđan Gino Jevđević. This was a very interesting documentary for me personally, since it also includes an emphasis on the Seattle music scene and what its like to be a Bosnian immigrant in Seattle.
And then, lastly, we had our Golden Apple Awards! To be completely honest with you, I was so focused on preparing my posts for social media that the awards ceremony went by in a blur. You can see the list of winners below:
🌟 Jury Award for Best Feature – THE PAVILION / PAVILJON directed by Dino Mustafić
🌟 Jury Award for Best Documentary – HOME GAME directed by Lidija Zelović
🌟 BHFF Audience Award – WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN / ŠTO TE NEMA directed by Mirko Pincelli
🌟 Jury Award for Best Short Film – NO BIG DEAL / NIŠTA STRAŠNO directed by Mirza Abdagić
🌟 Jury Award for Best Acting Performance – Faketa Salihbegović-Avdagić for her role as Merima in TESTAMENT
🌟 Jury Special Mention – STEEL HOTEL SONG directed by Bojan Stojčić
🌟 Jury Special Mention – CEASEFIRE / PREKID VATRE directed by Jakob Krese
🌟 BHFF Award for Outstanding Contribution to Bosnian Cinema – Rade Šerbedžija
Conclusion
Overall, I’m once again incredibly proud of the work that we all did as a team to bring this festival together this year. It truly is a group effort, and every single person had a direct impact on the festival’s success. Here’s to BHFF growing even more next year!
