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“I don’t know the last time I watched so many films! And they’re all amazing, all so daring, so courageous!”

You can hear the excitement in Lee Daniels’ voice. He’s running between screenings in a movie marathon at the Zurich Film Festival, where the Oscar-nominated director of Precious, and co-creator of TV’s Empire, is president of this year’s competition jury.

“I’d forgotten what this is like,” says Daniels, referring to the international art house cinema scene. “It’s a real return to my roots for me.”

Daniels started his film career in the indie world, as a producer on Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball. The powerful, disturbing look at the American prison system and the poisonous legacy of institutional racism is told through the unlikely romance between a white prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) and the Black widow of a man he executed (Halle Berry...

The Zurich Film Festival kicks off its 20th edition Thursday with a lineup of new European discoveries, some of the most acclaimed films of the year, a new center and wide-ranging industry forum.

In addition to an impressive roster of international stars, including Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Richard Gere and Pamela Anderson, the event offers a deep dive into some of the most pressing issues facing the industry at its annual Zurich Summit Conference.

Opening the fest will be Justin Kurzel’s neo-Nazi thriller “The Order,” starring Law, who will receive the festival’s Golden Eye career achievement award.

Organizers this year have streamlined the festival, eliminating its German-language Focus Competition and trimming the lineup down to 107 films, 41 fewer than last year. Zurich now has just two main competitions, for feature films and documentaries, in addition to such sidebars as Gala Premieres, Signatures, Border Lines, Hashtag #BigCityLife, Sounds and Zff for Kids.

The Zurich Film Festival (Zff) has unveiled its full line-up for its 20th anniversary edition, which takes place from 3-13 October.

Zff’s main competition line-up comprises 14 films, with eight of them directed by women. Two of them are world premieres: Lucia Chiarla’s Es Geht Um Luis from Germany and Lisa Bruhlmann’s When We Were Sisters from Switzerland.

“This year the female gaze dominates our competition. Numerous films tell their stories through the eyes of women, for example Linda or Mother Mara,” Christian Jungen said.

The competition is aimed at discovering new talents compromising first, second and third directorial works,...

On the eve of the world premiere of “Mother Mara,” her second feature as a director, multi-hyphenate Mirjana Karanović, the Balkan region’s most famous star, visited the Variety Lounge presented by the Sarajevo Film Festival and Bh Telecom.

Just as with her first feature, “The Good Wife,” Karanović stars and takes co-writing credits in “Mother Mara.” She discusses how her roles as director, actor and woman sometimes came in conflict on her second feature, while her first was very easy.

Karanović notes that “Mother Mara”, about a grieving woman, who rediscovers her life force through a relationship with a friend of her late son, shows a successful woman defying convention, doing something that might be considered inappropriate for her age.

Although she defines herself primarily as an actress, she says, “Directing and making movies give me so much pleasure. It’s so exciting. So, I always say theater is a marriage for me.

Throughout her storied career as a screen and theater actress, Mirjana Karanović has never run away from a challenge. In the melodrama “Mother Mara,” her second feature as a director, co-writer and star, she gives herself challenges aplenty, including showing herself both physically and emotionally naked. Her Mara is a tough, successful businesswoman with platinum curls à la Marilyn Monroe, whose carefully constructed identity falls apart after the death of her 21-year-old son.

Even Mara’s grieving process defies custom. She refuses to stay away from work or cry on the shoulders of others. Instead, she re-ignites her lifeforce through an affair with a much younger man. Some viewers, who would find it perfectly acceptable if the genders of the two principal characters were swapped, may find the older woman/younger man dynamic implausible, but the performances of the two leads and a late twist in the plot do a...

Mirjana Karanovic’s star shines brightly over this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival (Sff).

The Serbian actress-turned-director is presenting the world premiere of her latest feature Mother Mara, a film that examines the world of a middle-aged woman and how she deals with death that is also a film bursting with life.

Karanovich’s international breakthrough came in Emir Kusturica’s Palme d’Or-winning and Oscar-nominated When Father Was Away on Business (1985), and the veteran actress spent decades establishing herself as one of the most acclaimed acting talents in Southern Europe, with starring turns in such acclaimed features as Requiem for Mrs. J and Grbavica, before, aged 60, she decided to move behind the camera.

Her feature debut as a director, A Good Wife (2016), premiered at Sundance with Karanovic starring as an unassuming Serbian wife and mother forced to confront her own mortality, and her husband’s dark secrets. “Karanovic’s...

Upgrade Productions has acquired worldwide sales rights outside Australia and New Zealand to actor Rachel House’s directorial debut The Mountain ahead of its North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Jonathan Kier and Matt Brodlie’s Upgrade Productions will launch sales talks at the festival next month on the adventure story from Piki Films and Sandy Lane Productions about three children on a secret mission to climb Taranaki Mountain in New Zealand.

The film is currently the number one New Zealand film across New Zealand and Australia and has earned close to $600,000 in the two countries, releasing...

The Sarajevo Film Festival was born amid the Bosnian war, in 1994 during the four-year siege of the city. Sarajevo, the city, and the festival have done much to put that dark history behind them. But as the Sff celebrates its 30th edition, the festival continues to shine a spotlight on films that illuminate contemporary issues and politics, on films that celebrate the power of cinema even during the darkest times.

Of the nine movies screening as part of the Sff’s Competition Program, some deal with politics straight on — like Serbian director Vuk Ršumović’s Dwelling Among the Gods, which looks at issues of identity through the eyes of an Afghan refugee — or obliquely, as with Romanian filmmaker Andrei Cohn’s Holy Week, set in 1900 but around a clash of religions that still resonates today.

“As always, we are looking for original stories, new authors, and above all fresh and bold perspectives,...

When the Sarajevo Film Festival was born in the midst of the Bosnian War in 1995, the festival’s initial aim was to reconstruct and regenerate the capital city and its inhabitants who had been cut off from the rest of the world during the four-year siege. With the festival set to kick off its 30th edition on Friday, these early objectives – to support the local industry while also driving the city forward – still remain as this year’s edition will see the event move the bulk of its events from its usual home in Sarajevo’s old town to the Marijin Dvor neighborhood, a modern district of the city.

For festival director Jovan Marjanović, it’s a move that will signify a new era of a much-loved festival that has served as an essential launching pad for regional talent. “We’re testing the waters with this new place,” he tells Deadline.

For a richly pedigreed event that is intimately woven into the fabric of its host city, the Sarajevo Film Festival could be forgiven for resting on its laurels and choosing its 30th edition as an opportunity to look back — to reflect on its storied beginnings during the four-year siege that all but reduced the Bosnian capital to rubble in the early-1990s.

Instead, the organizers are introducing sweeping changes that will alter the look and feel of the event moving forward, with the nucleus of festival activities shifting from its historic home in the heart of Sarajevo’s old town to the modern part of the city.

Festival director Jovan Marjanović, who joined the Sarajevo fest two decades ago as a fresh-faced high-school graduate, tells Variety that while this year’s event will certainly pay homage to the past, festival leadership is “fully focused on the future,” adding: “I think...

“Mother Mara,” which has its world premiere at Sarajevo Film Festival as a gala screening, playing out of competition, has debuted its trailer (below). World sales are being represented by Antipode Sales International.

The Serbian drama stars and is directed by Mirjana Karanovic, who previously starred in and directed Sundance competition title “A Good Wife.” As an actor she is best known for Jasmila Zbanic’s “Grbavica,” winner of the Berlin Golden Bear, and Emir Kusturica’s Oscar nominated and Cannes Palme d’Or winner “When Father Was Away on Business.”

The film centers on Mara, a successful businesswoman and single mother, who is heartbroken after her son Nemanja’s untimely death. She becomes emotionally detached, refusing to communicate with friends and family. However, when she meets Milan, Nemanja’s close friend, she finds solace and comfort in their relationship. As they grow closer, they uncover more about Nemanja’s life and his passing,...