Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Industry Days Awards

The Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Industry Days, a platform focused on projects from Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, recently concluded with several awards given out to promising filmmakers.

Emilija Gašić’s folk horror ‘Wolf Days’ took home the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, a cash prize of €20,000 ($23,000). The film, produced by Serbia’s Non-Aligned Films and co-produced by Istok Films and Restart, follows a woman facing menopause who turns to a folk healer who draws her into a series of increasingly ridiculous rituals, driving her to the edge of madness in search of her own liberation.

According to Gašić, ‘Wolf Days’ is inspired by her encounters with many women who have been misdiagnosed, dismissed, and misunderstood within a deeply patriarchal healthcare system. This film seeks to uncover and challenge the taboos surrounding women’s health, especially menopause, and to expose the power imbalances that define both medical and personal relationships.

The Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award, also a cash prize of €20,000 ($23,000), went to ‘Mamayi,’ from Ukrainian writer-director Oleksandr Roshchyn and producer Packgauz. Set in 2009, the film follows two TV reporters forced into a dirty election campaign for a pro-Russian candidate who struggle to stay honest with their work and the people.

Roshchyn, known as the cinematographer behind films including 2021 Berlin Crystal Bear winner ‘Stop-Zemlia’ and 2025 Berlin Golden Bear contender ‘Timestamp,’ marked his directorial debut with ‘Mamayi.’ In a director’s statement, he said, ‘During a lengthy assignment in Ukraine, I began observing and imagining the personal drama of a journalist unfolding against the backdrop of pivotal socio-political events. [‘Mamayi’] is a film about witnessing the approach of a catastrophe — about the ability to foresee it and the inability to prevent it.’

In the Works in Progress strand, the HBO Award in the amount of €30,000 ($35,000) went to Filip Mojzeš’s ‘The First Week of August,’ a family drama set during an idyllic island vacation that takes a tumultuous turn when a mother’s sudden physical outburst towards her 10-year-old son exposes hidden tensions and lingering conflicts within the family.

Other winners in the CineLink Co-Production Market include the Film Center Montenegro Award, which gave a €10,000 ($11,700) cash prize to Turkish director Selcen Ergun’s ‘How to Disappear in the Lake.’ The Kosovo Cinematography Center CineLink Award in the amount of €10,000 ($11,700) went to ‘The Taste of the Peach,’ by Georgian filmmaker Elena Mikaberidze, who also received the Next Step Studio CineLink Award.

The Artekino International Prize in the amount of €6,000 ($7,000) went to ‘Forbidden Fruit,’ from Slovenia’s Urška Djukić Lecamus. In the CineLink Drama strand, the Croatian Audiovisual Center Drama Award in the amount of €15,000 ($17,500) went to the family drama series ‘You Can Always Come Back,’ from creator Tena Gojić and writer Hana Jušić.

The TV Drama Vision Pitch Award went to the Croatian political thriller ‘Stringers,’ from writer-creator Nikola Kuprešanin. Lastly, the Female Voices CineLink Award, a €20,000 ($23,000) cash prize handed out in partnership with the Slovenian Film Center and the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, went to the horror-comedy series ‘Little Yugoslavia,’ from writer-creators Teona Strugar Mitevska and Sonja Prosenc.

The Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 14 – 21.