Banja Luka fest wraps
After the short film festival Kratkofil brought a crowd of international filmmakers to Banja Luka for the first time in 2007, the capital of the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Hercegovina now also hosts an international feature and documentary film festival. Initiated by the sales agent and producer Irena Taskovski, the Banja Luka International Film Festival, scheduled in the beginning of May, is to give new cultural impulses to a region where only few cinemas exist.
The festival was opened with Stefan Arsenijević's feature debut "Love and Other Crimes," thus a representative of Serbia's young generation of directors being part of the European-wide coproduction networks. Besides competitive sections for feature, documentary and student's films which presented international arthouse festival hits, mostly in presence of the filmakers, sidebar programmes dealt with women directors and "Peace and tolerance." Essential sections, as, according to Taskovski, the festival also is about to "break the close minds" in a region still suffering the consequences of war traumata and nationalistic tensions.
The idea was supported both by the cultural ministry of the Serb Republic as well as the local authorities of Banja Luka which took over the major part of the festivals budget. Taskovski also points out the acceptance the festival found in the 'federation' – the entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina mainly inhabited by Bosniaks and Croats: among the jury members had been Jasmin Duraković, director of the state-run Federal television, and the actress Jasna Žalica from Sarajevo.
Though the political atmosphere recently stabilized, a few issues still lack open discussion. Films on highly explosive subjects like war crimes or Kosovo had not been shown yet. However, Eran Kolirins multiethnical "The Band's Visit" on the trip of an Egypt police band to Israel belonged to the most popular films both for the regional media as well as for the audience.
An educational section featured workshops on filmmaking, funding and film criticism. Among its participants were students from the Banja Luka film academy. Founded seven years ago, it produced a few acclaimed short fictions like Mladen Djukic's "Name this film after me" combining a drama plot with he choreography of a folcloristic ballet and Dragan Radetićs fairy-taily grotesque "The postman and the princess," while there is a number of independent filmmakers like Danijela Majstorović whose investigative documentaries deal with human trafficking and the "Turbofolk" industry in the Serb Republic.
Michael Jones is the film festival editor at Variety.com. 
