Best Bosnian movies

Bosnia, July 1995. Aida is a translator for the UN in the small town of Srebrenica. When the Serbian army takes over the town, her family is among the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp. As an insider to the negotiations Aida has access to crucial information that she needs to interpret. What is at the horizon for her family and people – rescue or death? Which move should she take?

Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?

Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.

Back from a professional trip to Paris, a neurologist at the pinnacle of his career has to pick up his wife so that they can attend a family meal to commemorate his father, who died a year before. At his mother's flat, the guests are waiting for the priest to arrive while arguing about all kinds of things connected and unconnected with the world’s events and wars.

Nikola’s children are taken away from him after social services decide that he is too poor to provide them with a decent living environment. He sets off on foot to lodge a complaint in Belgrade.

In 1994, Sarajevo was a city under siege. Mortars and rocket propelled grenades rained onto the city, killing indiscriminately, every day. Amongst the madness, two United Nations personnel: a British military officer and another Brit working for the UN Fire Department, decided it would be fun to persuade a global rock star, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, to come and play a gig to the population. Scream for Me Sarajevo brings that story, in all its madness, to the big screen. A story of musicians who risked their lives to play a gig to people who risked their lives to live them.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1991. After the fall of the communists, Divko Buntić, who has lived in exile in Germany for the past twenty years, returns to the village where he grew up, intent on reclaiming ownership of his family home, driving a swanky Mercedes and accompanied by his young bride; by Bonny, his lucky black cat; and with pockets full of money.

Two years after the Bosnian civil war, a town that is slowly rebuilding itself must whip together a democracy when it's announced the U.S. President Bill Clinton might be paying a visit.

The story begins a couple days after the war has ended. A group of Serbian soldiers in charge of clearing the fields from mines discovers a man sealed inside a factory's basement. A mysterious man says he is 'ours', he doesn't feel cold, isn't hungry and only asks for cigarettes. As soon as he is brought along, people start disappearing, and the infighting begins. Who is the mystery man?

Set in Sarajevo in May 2021, the city's famous Old Town tries to recover after a difficult pandemic year. When a visitor from Zagreb comes looking for the best kebabs in town, a harmless gesture causes the disintegration of the business and private lives of several people.

An alcoholic Bosnian poet sends his wife and daughter away from Sarajevo so they can avoid the troubles there. However, he is soon descended upon by a pair of orphaned brothers. The brothers have escaped a massacre in their own village and have come to the Bosnian capital in search of a long lost Aunt. The poet befriends the boys and together they try to survive the horror of the siege of Sarajevo.

When 50-year-old Milena finds out about the terrible past of her seemingly ideal husband, while simultaneously learning of her own cancer diagnosis, she begins an awakening from the suburban paradise she has been living in.

Zeko, a barber and ex-soldier suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, invites his brother Braco and his friend Švabo to Eid festivities. He intends to take advantage of the festive mood and ask his brother, a gambler and alcoholic, to change his ways. Braco doesn’t want to listen and will not take the conversation seriously. Zeko puts a razor under his brother’s neck, forcing him to promise he will change; furious, Braco leaves, telling Zeko he will never see him again, while Švabo suggests that Zeko see a psychiatrist. Alone, without his only friend and his brother, Zeko decides to kill himself – until Muki, a young man selling books door-to-door, stops him.

Siniša Mesjak, an arrogant and ambitious politician on the rise, finds himself in the middle of a scandal. To hide him from the public, the president appoints him as the commissioner of Croatian government on the furthest settled island Trečić, where he is tasked with the organization of local elections. The previous seven commissioners haven't succeeded.

Čedo, Neđi, Milka, Branka, Mrva, and Mile receive an offer for a well-paid job. At first, when they started working, it was not as they had imagined and expected: various problems arise, causing disagreements between the main characters.

Ilija is a member of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) somewhere in Central Bosnia in late 1993. One morning, after a routine mine laying campaign, he learns his younger brother Goran was killed far beyond enemy lines, together with eight other soldiers. Through a friend from the secret service, he finds out the mission was an unofficial one and that Goran and the others were acting as mercenaries. Ilija begins to expose a network of illegal activity involving not only the military, but high-ranking officials. As the investigation becomes more dangerous, his original intention to find out the truth slowly turns into a pathological mission of vengeance.

The year is 2156. The civilization you know more does not exist. All this was preceded by wars. Natural disasters of great magnitude. Now the rule ... that there is no rule, the law does not exist. There is only hunger, death and hunting ...

Kosevo July 19 is a DVD by Dino Merlin. It was released in January 2009. It has been recorded on July 19, on his concert in Sarajevo on stadium Kosevo, promoting his tenth studio album Ispočetka.

Senada is 31 and she lives in Poljice neighborhood in Lukavac municipality with her partner and two daughters. She is pregnant with her third child for approximately five months. Since she didn’t have health insurance, she does not go to the doctor’s. When she started bleeding, she goes to the hospital. The doctor told Senada that she needs an emergency surgery and she needs to pay 500 EUR. Without a health insurance card and without money, Senada returns home.

The story of a woman who firmly believes that her newborn baby was stolen from her more than 20 years ago, while she was told that her baby died.

10 minutes doesn't seem long to a Japanese tourist waiting for some photos in Rome, but a lot can happen in the same 10 minutes for a family in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.

Fuke visits his uncle Idriz and aunt Sabira to fix a broken boiler. He soon finds out there's a lot more that needs to be repaired. Idriz and Sabira aren't ready to accept the loss of their only son in the Balkan war, seven years earlier. When Fuke's car refuses to start, Fuke has to stay over in their house. He meets a lot of old friends and neighbors there.

Mirko, an average football player at the end of his career, is back in his hometown because of a knee injury. His family owns a restaurant which is on the verge of collapsing, both because of the economic unprofitability, and because of the plans of local criminals who are interested in the plot where the restaurant is located. One of those criminals is Slavko, Mirko's childhood friend, who suddenly returns to his life, just when Mirko needs him the most.

Story about a forty-something Sarajevo taxi driver named Fudo (Saša Petrović) who decides to take control of his own destiny. Fudo doesn't earn much, so he supplements his income by offering tips to the local criminal syndicate and turning a blind eye to their nefarious dealings. One day, after offering a particularly bad bit of advice to a violent gangster, Fudo is badly beaten. When Fudo's wife Azra (Daria Lorenci) discovers what has happened, she decides to take the couple's infant son and move out. Now determined to win his wife back and restore peace in the home, Fudo decides to go straight. But cleaning up his act isn't going to be easy, because after borrowing enough cash from black market dealer Sejo (Emir Hadžihafizbegović) to purchase a van and then refusing to aid him in any underhanded dealings, the only person willing to cut him any slack is the sympathetic Azra.

The daily hardships of a war-scarred Bosnian village, where all that remains are widows and orphans, are painstakingly documented in this first feature from director Aida Begic. Snow offers insight about the psychological aftereffects of the 1992-95 civil war from a distinctively female point of view without showing any of the brutality or carnage.

Hurikán rushes out to save his favourite beer stand from closure by fetching a new keg to impress the bartender he has a crush on. In a wild Prague district, he faces robbers, cops, and his own thirst. Despite getting the keg, he succumbs to temptation.

Follows an elderly man living in isolation, weaving together a tapestry of dreamlike visuals as it records the routines of his daily life. Surrounding mountains, a burning stove and animal companions offer solace and warmth.

In Sarajevo, a teenager seeking affirmation reveals that she had sex for the first time during a game of 'truth or dare' among middle schoolers. Trapped in her own lie, she fabricates a pregnancy and becomes the center of a controversy that spirals out of control.

Being away for many years, Amir returns to Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to take custody of his parent's remains. They were murdered during the war but their bodies haven't been recovered so far. Amir also decides to visit the place of his birth. There, besides a ruined house, he also finds a forgotten friend and those who know about him more than he knows about himself.

A space in silence, where past has captured present. Taking over, layer by layer, the collective pain enters the landscape, the space, the city. Eventually, it enters us. Srebrenica becomes a reality of today, and our own reality.

At the traditional Muslim funeral service for his father Fikret Varupa, sixteen year old boy from Sarajevo, learns that his father owes money to Hamid, a man he does not even know. The debt is considerable and Hamid does not want it to go to the grave with the body, so the debt automatically passes from the father to the son. Since in Bosnia this way of collecting debts, at a funeral, is considered to be utterly humiliating, it is never, ever applied. Fikret and his entire family become subjects of ridicule. Fikret, who is practically still a child, is decisive to "redeem his father's soul". Wishing to repay his father's debt and to secure the forgiveness, Fikret wanders into the real world of Sarajevo, the world that is ruled by post-war chaos, misery and poverty and becomes an ideal target for two corrupted policemen who wish to "help" him: they plant the kidnapped girl on him.

Five stories that tell how a handful of football stars took the risk of losing everything and put their fate in the balance to make a difference by becoming the symbol of a fight.

Asja, a 45-year-old single woman living in Sarajevo, meets Zoran, a 46-year-old banker, at a dating event. Zoran is not there looking for love though, but for forgiveness. During the war in 1993 he was shooting at the city from the opposite side, and he wants to meet his first victim. Now, they both have to relive the pain in their search for forgiveness.

The story of a forced march of the first proletarian shock brigade during World War II.

Friendship and love at a time of life when impulses and changes are irresistible.

A man, a child, two wars, a river, a tree. A man and a child meet under a tree on a river bank, sharing the same memory and a secret. They find in each other the serenity, the silence and the time they lost in the flowing water of the river.

Čedo and Mile are looking forward to their new appointment as security guards in the national park. Their first task is to take a group of German tourists, which unsurprisingly ends up in disaster.

Sarajevo on 28 of June, 2014. At the Hotel Europa, the best hotel in town, the manager Omer prepares to welcome a delegation of diplomatic VIPs. On the centenary of the assassination that is considered to have led to World War I, an appeal for peace and understanding is supposed to start from here. But the hotel staff have other worries: having not been paid for months, they are planning to go on strike. Hatidza from the hotel laundry is elected strike leader even though her daughter Lamija, who works in reception, is firmly against industrial action. Meanwhile, in the sealed-off presidential suite, a guest from France rehearses a speech. Elsewhere, a television reporter conducts interviews about war and its consequences. Was Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin, a criminal or a national hero? What long shadow does his deed cast into the present?

Mirjana returns home to attend her mother’s funeral. Now, surrounded by stone in a place where time seems to have come to a halt, she has to face her father and his expectations as well as her own emotions and feelings of guilt.

This film follows father Ahmed and son Tarik Karaga during WWII and the Siege of Sarajevo.

In the summer of 1993, a group of Bosnian refugees flee to Sweden due to the war in Bosnia. The Swedish Red Cross places refugees in a pavilion for migrants. Among them is the middle-aged married couple, Dervish and Adem. Dervish meets the Swede Ingrid in the pavilion and despite the language barrier, the two become good friends. Then, Dervish finds out that Ingrid is seriously ill...

This is a story about pain, search for meaning in life and friendship of orphaned. Syrian boys - Isa, Ahmed and Muataz - who live a difficult life as refugees in the magical, mythical Turkish city of Sanliurfa. In their search for recovery from traumatic past, the children will cross the path from destructiveness and hostility to meaningfulness and love. By finding friends in each other, the boys will find their inner peace.

Members of the family travel somewhere.

In a sweaty, overcrowded tram in Sarajevo, a shy teenager is beset by every imaginable impediment as he tries to capture the attention of his object of desire. Yet the overheated hero of this wild farce will not be easily defeated.

Movie follows life of Croatian war hero general Ante Gotovina.

April 1992. Members of a large family strewn around the former Yugoslavia gather around the death bed of their elderly matriarch. She is not well, but the forecast of a family doctor that her death is a matter of minutes away proves incorrect, so the waiting stretches out for days. Relatives start bickering, playing tricks and arguing over the inheritance to be left by the old woman, especially over her large family house in Sarajevo. Despite her deteriorating health, Grandma happily joins the fray. It appears as if that might be what is keeping her alive. Family feuds and intrigues directed against one of the sisters are more important to the family than the clear, terrifying signs of an approaching cataclysm. When the scheming is finally revealed, it is too late. A war has begun in Sarajevo.

An uncommon motorcycle club led by Bosnian War veterans finds redemption helping their struggling small town heal and defending the threatened herd of wild horses they first met on the front line.

In a train from Sarajevo to Zagreb, looking at the landscape of the foreign country from a window, I somehow felt nostalgic and a question crossed my mind. “What is my first memory?” Could primitive memories be found and shared in human beings? If collective memories exist in us as what is inherited, I would like to know what it is like and to capture them by camera and sound recorder.

During the Balkan conflict (1991-2001), between 25,000 and 50,000 women were victims of sexual violence as an ethnic cleansing strategy. However, there is no official figure because many of the victims either did not survive or they now live in silence. This documentary shows the witnesses and their struggle to break the silence and overcome the stigma in a society that still suffers the consequences of war, 25 years later.

"Toni Kukoč - The Magical Seven" is about a young man from Split who, with his basketball knowledge, professionalism and unique style of play, won the basketball world in the late 1980s and 1990s. In those years, Toni Kukoč became Europe's most popular basketball player and was also officially voted the best player of the old continent four times. The journey from Split, from elementary school to winning an NBA ring and sharing the locker room with the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, is a story about growing up, fellowship, and socializing with generations that only knew about winning during those years. He played and won Olympic medals for two countries, Yugoslavia and Croatia. Regardless of his incredible sports results, what sets Toni Kukoč apart is his behavior off the field, his modesty and his sincerity.

In Zenica, a giant steel factory belches toxic gasses into the air day and night, making the city one of the world’s most polluted, and people are dying. Samir Lemes and citizen activists from Eko Forum fight an uneven fight for change against the reckless corporation, the local politicians who focus on jobs, investments, and re-elections, and the EU who co-funds the corporation without enforcing laws and international standards. Instead, they name Zenica ‘A Green City Project’, building bicycle lanes in a city where breathing is a health hazard. A film about financial cynicism, political pragmatisk and greenwashing, in which West European countries play a surprisingly big role.

The story follows a group of birds on a journey where they try to find a better life for themselves and the ones they love.

Sarajevo, 1992. They are called Ahmed, Lana, Sado, Saba, Sahbey, Beba, Nemanja, Marx, Matan. They live in and between wartimes. They have "nafaka", the destiny which was bestowed on them by God Almighty. They have enough gallows humor and courage to believe in freedom and happiness.

"Looking for Horses" is a film about a friendship between the filmmaker and a fisherman, who lost his hearing during the Bosnian civil war and retreated to a lake to live in solitude. The filmmaker, son of Bosnian parents, struggles to communicate as he lost his mother-tongue due to a heavy stutter. Despite their speech and hearing limitations, a bond develops between the young man and the veteran, as he shares his world of the lake: full of large catfish, wild horses, wide silences, and dangerous thunderstorms. Where for the fisherman the lake stands for a withdrawal from a fractured country, a land of war; for the filmmaker it precisely means the return to that broken place, the land of his parents. They look for ways to communicate, while the camera mediates their growing bond. Taking the shape of a gentle western, "Looking for Horses" is a poetic documentary on trauma, survival, and connection.

The film is dedicated to the struggles that lasted from June 24 to October 6, 1992, when the Banja Luka-Bijeljina corridor was liberated. Operation “Corridor” meant life for the population of both Krajinas – the supply of food, electricity and medicine was re-established.

Merjem-Meri, an unambitious, 30-year-old homemaker and mother to 8-year-old girl Mila, moves back to her parental home after 10 years of marriage. Soon after, Meri realizes she is stuck in a circle of provincial rules and expectations and a complex relationship with her ambitious mother and spoiled younger brother. Her hope to get the custody of her daughter wanes from day to day because she has no chance of finding a permanent job. The only thing that makes her happy, but also makes everyone else look down on her, is participation in an audition for a film role in her neighborhood.

The Land is a haunted place between the two worlds; living and dead, where history and mythology converge. This territory named Krajina which means 'frontier' or ' the edge', is the land given by the Habsburg emperor in 17th century to the Serbian refugees from all over the Balkans to settle down and defend the border from the Ottoman empire. Today, formally the part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this land is still the imaginary line between the two civilizations, between east and west. It is a bewitched space, a dystopian universe where the ghosts return from all the past battles.

A man on the run comes to a remote island to help a friend’s grandmother to harvest tomatoes. Little did he know, the tomatoes contain something that will turn the island’s inhabitants into zombies.

After ten years in Germany, Armin returns to Bosnia. He just got married and wants to surprise his father, but he is not home. Neighbours say that he has been arrested, nobody knows why. The papers say that he is a suspect for the war crime back in the 90s. Armin wants to learn the truth and the neighbourhood to celebrate May Labor Day.

In the 1990s, the Yugoslavia Federation falls apart in bloody wars. Perpetual student Milan, a Serb from a patriarchal community, and Kenan, a Muslim cellist, are a gay couple living in Sarajevo. Their lives, intimate and public, are shaken up by the aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose devastating consequences unfold in inter-ethnic hatred.

A couple of morticians entertain themselves by betting on how many cold customers will come in that day. But one of the corpses refuses to cooperate...

Ivana, Clara and Marina are three women from different backgrounds living at the same time in Sarajevo. Ivana dreams about moving to the USA, Clara works during the night to save money for her studies and Marina is in love with her best friend who is moving to a different country. Each one fights to achieve her own goals, but most of the time society doesn´t accept what's not in accordance with its norms.

A man earns his first paycheck by driving his motorcycle, for the pleasure of rich people, through a mine field in Bosnia.

Since Zlatan fled the war in former Yugoslavia, his contact with his homeland has only consisted of him regularly sending money to his old aunt who is the only surviving relative there. Now his adult daughter is set on visiting Sarajevo (Zlatan’s hometown) together with him in order to walk the streets of his youth and hear his story. Despite initial unwillingness, Zlatan lets himself be persuaded and the reunion with the home country brings both absurd surprises and secrets from the past.

Follows the story of several characters whose life constantly interact and in their very own way mutually influence each other.

Mira Furlan plays the voice of Sava. Once the longest river in Yugoslavia she converses with her people on a 990km odyssey downstream through divided lands she seeks to understand.