Sandra Wollner's "Everytime" won the Heart of Sarajevo for best narrative feature film at the Sarajevo Film Festival. The Austrian director's third feature was the unanimous choice of a jury headed by two-time Academy Award nominee Emily Watson, which said the film contained "moments of cinematic grace" that "float through this mesmerically elastic and transcendental grief-soaked ghost story."
The film follows a mother, young daughter and teenage boy who, united by tragedy, travel to the Canary Islands for a family holiday that never happened. Past and present begin to quietly overlap under the coastal sun. Following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section, Variety's chief film critic Guy Lodge praised Wollner's "poised, haunting" drama, noting it "confirms the Austrian director's formidable formal control and imagination."
Georgian filmmaker Ana Urushadze won the Heart of Sarajevo for best director for "Supporting Role." The jury said they were "enchanted by her irreverent blending of the banal and the oneiric, and her refreshing curiosity for meaning in life and cinema." The film follows a movie star on a surreal and melancholic soul-search through the streets of Tbilisi.
Eva Kostić won best actress for her lead role in "17," the debut feature from North Macedonian director Kosara Mitić, about a teenager wrestling with the aftermath of a sexual assault. The jury heralded her performance as "raw, visceral and deeply instinctive" and "the fearless emergence of a young talent." Adrian Văncică won best actor for "You Don't Belong Here," Romanian filmmaker Florin Şerban's film about a respected doctor whose world is shaken when he discovers his son is a suspect in the murder of a Roma man.
The Heart of Sarajevo for best documentary feature went to directing duo Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić for "To Hold a Mountain," a story of sisterhood and solitude in the Montenegrin highlands. The documentary jury called it "an unforgettable journey" and praised its "astonishingly epic cinematography" and "touching portrait of two extraordinary women and a disappearing way of life."
