CineLink Industry Days, the professional platform of Sarajevo Film Festival, is showcasing some of the most dynamic film and series projects from southeast Europe across six strands.
Screen selects five filmmakers attending CineLink with interesting projects and international potential.
Zeynep Koprulu (Turkey)
Istanbul-based filmmaker Zeynep Koprulu’s work explores displacement, coming of age and emotional repression. She is attending the Co-Production Market with Rain Country, set in Istanbul in 2002. It follows 17-year-old Gul as she navigates grief, guilt, and desire in the wake of a classmate’s death.
“Rain Country speaks to an audience drawn to intimate, female-driven stories, carrying the bittersweet nostalgia of Generation Y,” Koprulu believes. “It explores the quiet awakening that shapes a young woman’s path. At CineLink, we aim to find co-producers and partners who can help bring this intimate story to audiences worldwide, and to push the project further.”
Having taken part in the m2 Screenwriting Development workshop in Istanbul in 2024, the project is in active development, with shooting set for spring 2027, produced by Utku Zeka and Asena Bulduk through Periferi Film.
Ursa Menart (Slovenia)
Co-writing two films by Damjan Kozole – Karlovy Vary titles Nightlife (2016) and Half-Sister (2019) – are among the credits of Slovenian writer-director Ursa Menart, whose own feature debut My Last Year As A Loser won best film and screenplay at Slovenia’s Vesna national film awards in 2018. Her second feature Everything That’s Wrong With You is in CineLink’s Work in Progress section. The comedy drama centres a woman in her mid-twenties grappling with the aftermath of her mother’s terminal illness, who finds an unlikely online friend in a nurse and social media influencer.
Having already participated in co-production markets at CineLink and the Berlinale in 2021, Menart is “nervous but excited [to return] and share what we’ve been working on”.
“Anyone struggling to connect to other human beings might find the film engaging, but it could resonate with young women in particular,” says Menart.
Anton Mezulic (Croatia)
Having worked as a journalist, videographer, media researcher and cinematographer, Anton Mezulic built an eclectic career before heading into his debut feature-length documentary Cordon, in the Docu Rough Cut Boutique strand. The coming-of-age story shows Nikola, a football player born to a Serbian father and Croatian mother, who must decide which nationality to follow when choosing his team.
Produced by Oliver Sertic for Croatia’s Restart and co-produced by Victor Ede for France’s Cinephage, the project received the DOK Leipzig Co-pro Market Award in 2020, the Croatian Radio Television – HRT TV Award at AJB DOC in 2023 and the Doc Around Europe Award at FIPADOC’s European First Film Pitches last January.
“Although the protagonist is a young teenager, the real target group are the parents who will be able to see how their habits, actions and traumas affect their kids,” says Mezulic. “But it will also certainly be interesting for younger audiences who will relate to Nikola and the challenges he is facing.”
Kosara Mitic (North Macedonia)
A directing graduate of Skopje’s Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Kosara Mitic has made four short films and is now presenting debut feature 17 in the Work in Progress strand.
“Young people will find it easier to recognise and relate to the energy of 17 but the target audience is the older generation who will experience the film from a different, more disturbing point of view,” says Mitic of the drama about a 17-year-old who becomes pregnant after a threesome with two classmates, and goes on a graduation trip wihout telling anyone.
Co-written with Ognjen Svilicic, the film is produced by Toni Salkovski for North Macedonia’s Black Cat Production, Miroslav Mogorović for Serbia’s Art&Popcorn and Vlado Bulajic for Slovenia’s December. “I’m hoping CineLink will give the film greater visibility within the international industry,” says Mitic.
Bojana Novakovic (Serbia-Australia)
A successful acting career with roles in films including Drag Me to Hell, I, Tonya and Love Me has preceded Serbian-Australian actress Bojana Novakovic’s move behind the camera. Her non-fiction directorial debut The Forbidden Aunt is in CineLink’s Work in Progress strand. It sees the filmmaker travel from Australia to Serbia to film her mysterious aunt Gordana, depicting the hidden pain of generational trauma and sexual violence among several generations of women.
The project has taken part in various development workshops and co-production markets, including Ji.hlava’s Emerging Producers, Thessaloniki’s Docs in Progress, DocsBarcelona Industry, Beldocs Industry and Media Play. Novakovic is producing with Sonja Bozic and Milan Stojanovic for Serbia’s Sense Production.
“I’d love to say the audience is Balkan men, but then sales agents would laugh,” comments Novakovic. “I don’t think filmmakers should ever be limited by [a target audience”.
“I could say it’s for anyone with a family, who loves women, and cares about our futures and safety. But then I’d be shutting out an entire population of Balkan audiences who are allergic to feminism — and those audiences, of all genders, would miss an imperative, universal story for our region.”
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