The Telemach Youth Film Festival Sarajevo presents an average of 90 films from over 15 countries around the world every year. The focus is on the short film competition program through the OFF Shorts and OFF Generation Shorts sections, while the competition feature films are presented through the OFF Generation Features section.
OFF Shorts represents the main program of the Sarajevo Youth Film Festival and shows a selection of short feature films. As part of this selection, young film professionals are presented with their short films created in their own production or the production of their film schools. This program of the Festival is entirely dedicated to the promotion of new film professionals and makes its platform available to authors who are at the beginning of their careers.
OFF Generation Shorts is a competition program of the Festival, which represents authors, young professionals, former students of film academies and who are a maximum of 36 years old. Another accent that the program places special emphasis on is that the films are thematically current, socially engaged, unique in their cinematic expression, provocative and attractive. The program focuses on films that are thematically intended for generations and characters of people eager for change, societies and environments where the voice of a current generation must be taken seriously.
OFF Generation Features presents the main selection of the feature film competition program. This is a program that focuses on topics important to society and the development of young people in society, but also brings titles from some of the biggest film festivals in the world. Secondarily, this program works on educating the audience, how to critically watch a film, focusing on specific elements of filmmaking.
OFF Retrospektiva is a program of the Festival that shows digitally restored film classics, films of domestic, regional and foreign older production in the hope that they will have a re-premiere in front of a young audience.
OFF Screen is the program of the special feature film of the Festival. Unlike OFF Generation Features, OFF Screen does not look for new productions and competitive films, but for those topics and films that, even in countless broadcasts or even in their first broadcast, find their way to viewers and affect opinions and feelings instantly.
The Wolf Competition selection of the Telemach Youth Film Festival Sarajevo brings some of the world’s biggest titles for young people aged 14 and up. As part of this selection, our young audience will have the opportunity to experience the stories of their peers that deal with the values of togetherness, acceptance and drinking. The selection focuses on films that take young people seriously and stories that are told through the perspectives of young protagonists. The Wolf Competition shows films that are important and open doors to unknown worlds. Films that require courage, show different perspectives and encourage collective solutions.
OFF Youth Experience represents the latest program of the Festival and its mission is to gather young film lovers and young filmmakers from the region, who will have the opportunity to watch films, exchange opinions and socialize with young people from the region during the eight days of the Festival. Participation in this program brings not only the opportunity to develop knowledge about film, but, for the best and most active, the possibility of participation and exchange at regional and European partner festivals. The uniqueness of the program is that all participants of the OFF_YE program are also in the role of youth jury.
OFF Pro Film Market is the industry program of the Sarajevo Festival and is based on the development of film and serial content, co-productions and the discovery and education of young talents in all branches of the industry. With this program, the Festival presents itself as a unique hub for young authors from all over Europe and the opportunity to present their projects that are in development or finished projects, and to meet and work with some of the top film professionals from around the world.
Through the OFF Buzz program, the Festival presents unique musical events during the seven days of the program. In past years, the groups Skroz, SARS, Letu Štuke, Kiril Džajkovski and others performed at the opening and closing of the Festival. Every year, the Festival presents a new location for the opening concert, while the closing concert is always in the open-air cinema on Wilson Promenade, i.e. at the location of the summer stage in the museum district of Wilson Promenade.