Georgian Charmer ‘Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,’ About a Late Bloomer Stumbling Into a New Life, Wins at Sarajevo Film Festival

Elene Naverianis Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry won the top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film, Friday at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The Georgian film, in which a stoically independent woman in her late 40s experiences a gentle existential awakening during an affair with a local deliveryman, also won the best actress prize for Ekaterine Chavleishvilis performance.

The award for best director went to Ukraines Philip Sotnychenko for La Palisiada, and the best actor prize was picked up by Serbias Jovan Gini who won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at Cannes for Lost Country. Serbian director Nemanja Vojinovis Bottlemen took the documentary film award.

The awards were given by a jury headed by actor Mia Wasikowska (Club Zero), which included Danish-Croatian actor Zlatko Buri (Triangle of Sadness), Serbian-Danish actor Danica uri (The Chestnut Man), Museum of Modern Art Department of Film curator Josh Siegel and Croatian writer-director Juraj Leroti, who won last years top prize in Sarajevo with Safe Place.

The ceremony at Sarajevos historic National Theater took place beneath stormy skies, as thunder rumbled over the green hills that ring this picturesque Balkan city and arrivals did their best to strike poses on a red carpet still water-logged from evening rain showers. It was a fittingly sober close to a festival that, despite shattering last years record-breaking attendance figures, played out against the backdrop of a grisly crime that has left this small Balkan nation reeling.

Last Friday, in the small northeastern town of Gradaac, a man livestreamed the murder of his former wife on Instagram before killing another man and his son, injuring a further three people before committing suicide. Officials later said some 12,000 people watched the slaying live, and the video received 126 likes.

Many at Fridays closing ceremony wore orange ribbons pinned to their lapels that were handed out by the festival as a symbol of the fight against gender-based violence. Accepting the Human Rights Award for Silence of Reason, a haunting documentary about women who suffered sexual violence and torture in rape camps during the Bosnian War, director Kumjana Novakova said: This film is really a poem for any woman who survived any kind of violence in the worldespecially today for the women of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are here, we survived and we can only make it better.

On Wednesday, the Bosnia and Herzegovina government declared a nationwide Day of Mourning following the gruesome murders. In response, the festival cancelled all screenings and public events that day, apart from a special panel that included several filmmakers discussing the representations of violence against women in a region where such crimes are still shockingly, appallingly common.

The emotional, standing-room-only event at Sarajevos red-carpeted Festival Square was broadcast live on Bosnian television. Festival topper Jovan Marjanovi, expressing his dismay at a terrible incident that shocked the country, told Variety that the hastily assembled panel was a humble but relevant contribution to the ongoing conversation around domestic violence and femicide, noting that the festival program this year included over 15 titles dealing directly with the subject. These are terrible circumstances, but I think we did what a film festival should do, he said.

The sudden disruption mid-fest caused by the sweeping cancellations left organizers on their back foot as they scrambled to shuffle film premieres and other public events. We had to reschedule the last three days entirely, said Marjanovi. It was quite a big feat to move 100 different programming items screenings and panels and masterclasses. It was a terrific effort from the team that did this overnight. The effort paid off, with the festival registering a 50% box office increase and a 30% jump in total admissions from a record-breaking 2022, with more than 130,000 tickets sold at this years event.

It wasnt the only disturbance at this years Sarajevo festival, which faced a backlash on Wednesday over the inclusion of a controversial Serbian historical drama in an industry event. The World War II drama, Heroes of Halyard, which was part of a content showcase from Serbias state-backed Telekom Srbija, was criticized for glorifying a Serbian nationalist group accused of war crimes. Amid a firestorm on social media and in the Bosnian press, the mayor of Sarajevo called for resignations and threatened to pull the plug on the citys support for future editions of the festival.

Ultimately, said Marjanovi, cooler heads prevailed, with the festival chief insisting that misinformation around the films inclusion was the main culprit and that the political firestorm has died down. I dont think this will, in the end, have a big effect on the market and the way that CineLink happened this year, he said. Its just a story that exploded, so people followed it. But overall, I think this is something that we will overcome, have the lessons learned and make sure it never happens again.

Indeed, the controversy seemed to have blown over by the time the awards were handed out Friday night. And the dual triumph for Naveriani and Chavleishvili who provided, wrote Varietys Jessica Kiang in her review of Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry at Cannes, a most unusual feminist heroine, one experiencing the mischievous, rarely seen triumph of a woman coming into bloom just as those around her are beginning to fade offered a rousing send-off to this years festival.

Also at Fridays ceremony, Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here) was presented with an honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award. We honor not just a filmmaker, but a true visionary who has enriched our lives with her talent, said Marjanovi. Your impact on cinema is immeasurable, and your legacy will continue to inspire generations of storytellers.

AWARDS OF THE 29TH SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL

COMPETITION PROGRAM FEATURE FILM

Jury:

Mia Wasikowska (actor, director, Australia)

Zlatko Buri (actor, Croatia, Denmark)

Danica uri (actor, Serbia, Denmark)

Juraj Leroti (director, actor, Croatia)

Josh Siegel (curator of MOMAs Department of Film, U.S.)

Heart of Sarajevo for best feature film

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (Georgia, Switzerland)

Director: Elene Naveriani

Producer: Britta Rindelaub, Thomas Reichlin, Ketie Danelia

Heart of Sarajevo for best director

Philip Sotnychenko, La Palisiada (Ukraine)

Heart of Sarajevo for best actress

Ekaterine Chavleishvili, Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (Georgia, Switzerland)

Heart of Sarajevo for best actor

Jovan Gini, Lost Country (Serbia, France, Croatia, Luxembourg, Qatar)

COMPETITION PROGRAM DOCUMENTARY FILM

Jury:

Iva Dimitrova (Program manager at Chicken and Egg Pictures, U.S.)

Niklas Engstrom (artistic director at CPH:DOX, Denmark)

Pter Kerekes (director, Producer, Slovakia)

Heart of Sarajevo for best documentary film

Bottlemen (Serbia, Slovenia)

Director: Nemanja Vojinovi

Heart of Sarajevo for best short documentary film

Valerija (Croatia)

Director: Sara Jurini

Human Rights Award

Silence of Reason (North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Director: Kumjana Novakova

The Human Rights Award is presented for the best film from the competition program documentary film that addresses human rights issues.

Special Jury Award

Fairy Garden (Hungary, Romania, Croatia)

Director: Gerg Somogyvri

COMPETITION PROGRAM SHORT FILM

Jury:

Turai Balazs (director, animation artist, Hungary)

Nina Rodriguez (head of programming at Guanajuato Film Festival, Mexico)

Wim Vanacker (programmer at Cannes short film competition, France)

Heart of Sarajevo for best short film (eligible for Oscar nomination)

27 (Hungary, France)

Director: Flra Anna Buda

COMPETITION PROGRAM STUDENT FILM

Jury:

Kumjana Novakova (programmer, professor, producer and filmmaker, North Macedonia)

Tomek Popaku (director, animation artist, Poland)

Damir agolj (journalist, photographer, director of photography, professor at Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Heart of Sarajevo for best student film

Falling (Hungary, Belgium, Portugal)

Director: Anna Gyimesi

Jury Special Mention

Short Cut Grass (Croatia)

Director: David Gao

SPECIAL AWARD FOR PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY

Jury:

Jay Van Hoy (producer, U.S.)

Nashen Moodley (director of the Sydney Film Festival, Australia, South Africa)

Mila Schlingemann (Head of Programming at Eye Filmmuseum, Netherlands)

De Facto (Austria, Germany)

Director: Selma Doborac

HONORARY HEART OF SARAJEVO

Awarded in recognition of exceptional contribution to the art of film.

Mark Cousins, director and screenwriter

Lynne Ramsay, director, screenwriter and producer

Charlie Kaufman, screenwriter, director and producer