Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović, ekrem@www.media-marketing.com
Tomorrow the curtains will close for another excellent edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF). Sarajevo has lived through eight of its most beautiful days of the year. My vocabulary is rather modest to describe all that we feel and live through in these days of the festival. We adjust our vacations, take sick leave in order to have more time to enjoy, in pre-festival time we send e-mails and calls to friends around the region to come and visit us, and as our guests share the part of this joy. This year we hosted Robert De Niro. In the morning, my first thought was how nice it was to spend the night in the city where De Niro spent the night. You should have seen the taxi vehicles around Sarajevo that day. All were taped with De Niro’s pictures. He’s their colleague after all – the Taxi Driver. Every year Miro Purivatra surprises us. Bono came, then Del Toro, Freeman, Brad and Angelina, and you think that’s it, there’s no way up from here. And then Miro brings De Niro. Now again we think this is it, there’s nothing above this, and yet, we secretly hope to see Al Pacino next year on the red carpet of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Two things happen in Sarajevo that can take our city into the world and make it a metropolis of art. These are the Sarajevo Film Festival and the Museum of Contemporary Art Ars Aevi. But since Sarajevo is a totally unsuccessful city – which has the misfortune to be run by exclusively unsuccessful people with no vision (if we could only ‘rent’ Zoran Janković or Milan Bandić for just one term in office), so neither can SFF spread its wings, nor will we ever get to see the Museum of Contemporary Art, which has already been dubbed the Guggenheim of the Balkans due to its collection worth over 40 million euros. In addition to the valuable collection, Ars Aevi has a project design which was done by the renowned architect Renzo Piano. There are even countries which are ready to financially support the project, but here we have no one who wants it – except for Enver Hadžiomerspahić who has been charging windmills for more than twenty years now.
One of the first moves of the current mayor, when he sat in the chair, was to abolish subsidies for the Sarajevo Film Festival. Had he came from an agricultural cooperative (forgive me honest farmers), I might even understand him, but this man is a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy. Ten years ago I was at the Venice Biennale when it was marking its centenary. On this occasion, UNESCO made available their palace in Venice to the Ars Aevi Museum for promotion of contemporary art. There was also a press conference with Janis Kounellis, Renzo Piano and other well-known faces of contemporary art. Among others were the cantonal and federal ministers of culture. The two of them on this occasion informed the audience that all the problems relating the construction of the Ars Aevi had been resolved and that immediately upon their return, they will start the realization of this project. Property-legal issues regarding the location were resolved, the budget was provided for the payment of debts to the Museum of the Revolution in which the tens of millions of euros worth collection is stored, in order to protect it from decay and so on. We were all very happy about it. A few days after their return to Sarajevo, the ministers told the media that they had promised nothing. It was as if they’d never even been in Venice. I know that politics is a whore, that it is, in fact, the art of the possible, but that this can happen – that I did not know. I even began to doubt that I was in Venice, so I asked my wife if we were actually there. So, more than twenty years now, we’re waiting for the realization of not only Enver’s dream, but the dream of all smart and free-minded people of Sarajevo.
Since the festival was rich with events, with little time to tour them all, I didn’t keep the diary this week. Now I will write an aggregate log, in which I will not write about the movies, because I’m not knowledgeable in those, but about the things that were important and interesting to me.
I started living my festival days last Saturday evening, when I went to a party of the Sarajevo Brewery, which is the sponsor of the SFF. I was surprised how serious they were about this project. That evening they promoted the limited edition of the Sarajevsko beer with labels dedicated to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian cinema. The bottles featured posters of our most successful films. Very nice. Vedrana and I spent that evening in the company of the director Nedžad Begović and his wife Amina.
On Sunday we went to the estate of our friend outside of Sarajevo, and on Monday morning I was invited to visit Atlantic’s checkpoint in the center of Sarajevo, where the famous Cube was set. I gave a statement to their television about how I experience the festival and all the events around it. I also spoke about how important it is for the Festival to have friends like Emil Tedeschi, President of the Atlantic Group. You know, when you have a problem, you call your friends to help. And when you have a friend like Emil, you sleep better at night.
I had lunch at Vinoteka with Zvezdana Žujo, director of Communis. I really like the fact that, say, Ladeja Godina Košir and Bane Brkljač have a monthly lunch together in Ljubljana to discuss the books they have read, the most important things that happened to them in the past month, discuss new ideas and so on. I’ve copied them, and agreed with Zvezdana that the two of us will have lunch once a month to chat a bit. It was awesome.
On Tuesday morning I received a call from Vlado Kreslin. He was in Sarajevo, with Eva and the kids, because that evening he was having a concert at the Museum of Mak Dizdar. At noon we met in Baščaršija and went (where else) for ćevapćići. In the evening, Vedrana and I went to the concert and enjoyed until after midnight. A nice day.
On Wednesday I had lunch with Ozren Kebo, my friend and mentor. Ozren returned from a holiday, which I will miss this year because a holiday takes time, and I don’t have it. I wondered what Ozren thinks about some of the ideas and projects that we intend to realize by the end of the year. I got him talking and got everything I wanted: candid comments, suggestions, ideas how something can be done better and a promise that he would help us in some things.
In the afternoon I had a problem. Vedrana and I got three invitations to three events and we simply couldn’t decide to which to go, and we couldn’t go to all three. Indira Arnautović solved the problem for us. In 1990 she got her first job in the Yugoslav-Swiss marketing agency IMS Studio 6 Yugoslavia, of which I was then director. She was one of my closest associates. For years now she’s been living in London where she works in a studio that specializes in interior design and furnishing the most luxurious hotels in the world. On Wednesday she was celebrating birthday in Sarajevo, and she invited us, thus effectively solving our problem on where to spend the evening – we’re going to Indira’s birthday at Secret Rooms on Alifakovac. There, after 25 years, I met Aida Bambur, who, as a young designer, after graduating from the Academy, also started working in the Studio 6. I remember doing some great projects together.
On Wednesday evening Milena Garfield (Washington) and Uliks Fehmiu (New York) arrived in Sarajevo. They came to the SFF to seek partners for a television series about … well, I can’t tell you that. When the pitch is over, and if everything goes right, I will gladly write about it. I, of course, took advantage of this time to ‘harass’ Milena a bit with our Art & Business portal and, soon, magazine. We would like to announce in November a special edition so we needed Milena’s advice – we needed her mind which, when it comes to business and art, has no limits.
And again last night, Vedrana and I missed some parties and went to a private dinner with our friend Halina, a Pole from the European Commission, whose daughter came to the SFF.
So this year’s SFF came to pass. It was really great and successful.
As of today, I’m putting a chain on my door and not going anywhere. A lot of work awaits.
Oh, and yes, over the next eight days we will not be issuing new content on the portal. Associates have taken about ten days of vacation, so “see” you somewhere around 1 September. Until then, enjoy your vacations, weekends and all the other nice things.
Sarajevo, Thursday, 18 August 2016.