Bosnian writer-director Ena Sendijarevic has won the Sarajevo Film Festival’s top award for best feature for Take Me Somewhere Nice.
The film, her feature debut, tells the story of a Dutch girl of Bosnian descent who travels to Bosnia to visit her sick father. Amsterdam-based Sendijarevic draws on personal experience in the film that the jury described as “beautifully photographed, acted, scripted and directed.”
The best director honor went to Turkey’s Emin Alper for A Tale of Three Sister, the story of three siblings who endure an uneasy reunion while visiting their father in rural Turkey.
Irini Jambonas picked up the best actress award at Thursday night’s awards ceremony in Sarajevo for her role in Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev’s Rounds. The best actor award went to Levan Gelbakhiani for his part in And Then We Danced by Georgian director Levan Akin.
Azerbaijan’s Hilal Baydarov won the best documentary award for When the Persimmons Grew, while the best short was The Last Image of Father by Serbian director Stefan Djordjevic.
This year’s 25th edition of the film festival hosted such guests as Tim Roth, Isabelle Huppert, Pawel Pawlikowski and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
