Tonight, the AJB DOC Film Festival begins in Sarajevo, which brings to cinemas carefully selected documentaries of top production, whose focus is on human rights, reports Anadolu.
The sixth edition of the Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC) will be opened tonight in Sarajevo with the screening of the film “Game: Second Level” by Sajid Khan Nasiri, Eefje Blankevoort and Els Van Driel, which will be shown at the Bosnian Cultural Center (BKC) Sarajevo in 19:30.
The film follows Sajid Khan Nasiri who was only 14 years old when he escaped from Afghanistan. After a two-year journey full of dangers and difficulties – which he recorded in detail with his phone camera – he arrives in Belgium, where he will apply for asylum. He was sure that upon arriving in that country, he would relax, go to school and start a new life. However, a whole new struggle begins there. This is an intimate documentary about the psychological pressure young refugees face.
“Millions of people are in a desperate escape from hopelessness and a reality that we cannot even imagine. Therefore, it is important that through stories like this we learn the dimensions of injustice that some people face and awaken compassion in ourselves,” said Edhem Fočo, director of AJB DOC Film Festival.
Along with the opening ceremony, an exhibition of black-and-white photographs by Đorđe Kostić, Al Jazeera’s Digital Redaction producer and correspondent from Belgrade, will be opened in the Bosnian Cultural Center (BKC). Entrance to the exhibition called “Rights” during the festival is free. The author dedicates it to Sarajevo, where his first black and white photographs were taken, and to Al Jazeera Balkans, “his second home”.
In the following days of the festival, the audience of AJB DOC will have the opportunity to watch another 23 top-quality documentaries. What connects the works that will be shown in four selections (Takmičarska, AJB Shows, Last Minute Cinema and Smart DOC, along with two special screenings) are human rights and freedoms, which imposed the theme of this year’s edition – Rights/Right(s).
The films on the program of the Sixth AJB DOC will be shown at the Bosnian Cultural Center (BKC) and Cineplexx Sarajevo, and detailed information about the program is available on the festival’s official website.
The decision on the best film of the AJB DOC Competition Selection will be made by an award-winning international jury consisting of directors: Vitalij Manski, Bernadett Tuza-Ritter and Nermin Hamzagić and producers Vanja Jambrović and Mohamed Elmongy.
All competing films enter the competition for the Al Jazeera Balkans program jury award, which awards the AJB Program Award. Also, all films shown at the AJB DOC Film Festival enter the competition for the Audience Award.
As part of the AJB DOC Film Festival, the second edition of Al Jazeera Documentary Industry Days @ AJB DOC will be held from September 9 to 11, the aim of which is to strengthen and support the expansion of documentary film production in the world.
This year, AJD Industry Days @AJB DOC is offering significant co-production prizes in the amount of US$70,000 as well as the opportunity to win partner cash prizes totaling nearly US$20,000 and other valuable service prizes.
In cooperation with the Al Jazeera Media Institute and in partnership with Samsung and UNFPA, a three-day training session “Production of documentary films with a smartphone” will be held for young authors from the region, led by Faris Bajrić.
Also, in cooperation with the Oyoun cultural center from Berlin, the panel “The role of film and art in the culture of memory: Rwandan, Uyghur and Bosnian perspectives” will be held. The participants are: Suli Kurban, journalist and film worker, Esther Mujawayo, sociologist, activist and founder of the Rwandan Widows’ Association and Nihad Kreševljaković, head of the Memory Module (MESS) program.
This year’s edition of the AJB DOC Film Festival, which lasts from September 8 to 12, is held under the auspices of BH Telecom.
Anadolu News Agency is the global communication partner of AJB DOC.
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