Sarajevo Unveils Béla Tarr Tribute Program for Former Students of His Film School

Béla Tarr Xiao Xia, Xining/Sarajevo Film Festival

Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled a new program in honor of the late Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr.

The selection, titled Béla Tarr in Sarajevo, is a long-term initiative dedicated to the legacy of Tarr, who died earlier this year at the age of 70. The films selected to take part are made by his former students at the Film Factory in Sarajevo. Tarr’s scheme was an international, experimental doctoral school for film studies that ran from 2013 to 2017 in the Bosnian capital.

More than a retrospective, the program celebrates Tarr’s contribution to world cinema, but also to generations of authors who, through their own films, “continue to carry the spirit of curiosity, rigour and cinematic freedom that found a home in Sarajevo.”

Luca Guadagnino to Receive Venice Festival's Glory to the Filmmaker Award

Movies

Werner Herzog to Receive San Sebastian Film Festival's Donostia Award

“The selection reflects careers that have since taken these filmmakers to many of the world’s leading festivals, including Cannes, San Sebastián, Locarno, Rotterdam and Clermont-Ferrand,” said Jovan Marjanović, director of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “Rather than revealing a single aesthetic or cinematic school, their films reflect an educational philosophy that encouraged every filmmaker to discover a distinctly personal artistic language.”

Tarr was a longstanding friend of the Sarajevo Film Festival. In 2006, the Tribute To Program featured a retrospective of his selected works. He received the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the fest in 2013, and the following year served as president of the jury for the narrative feature film selection.

Among the films selected as part of this year’s inaugural Béla Tarr in Sarajevo program are Lamb from Iceland’s Valdimar Jóhannsson, about a childless couple who make an alarming discovery in their sheep barn, and Naval Gays, from the U.K.’s Grant Gulczynski, a meta-project about a filmmaker with low self-esteem who crafts a movie about sex, the body and himself.

Take a look at the full lineup below.

Cenote, Kaori Oda

Firewood, Manel Raga Raga

Lamb, Valdimar Jóhannsson Love Dog, Bianca Lucas

Motherhood, Pilar Palomero

Naval Gays, Grant Gulczynski

Soil and Wings, Stefan Malešević

The Bridge, Léa Triboulet

Travesias, Sergio Flores Thorija

Who the Fuck Are You, Marina Radmilac