Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,569 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby municipalities is home to 555,210 inhabitants. Located within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans, a region of Southern Europe.
Zabranjeno pušenje is a Bosnian rock band formed in Sarajevo in 1980. The group's musical style primarily consists of a distinctive garage rock sound with folk influences, often featuring innovative production and complex storytelling. Currently, the band consists of founding member, vocalist and guitarist Sejo Sexon, longtime drummer Branko Trajkov, guitarist Toni Lović, bassist Dejan Orešković, and violinist and keyboardist Robert Boldižar.
The Sarajevo Film Festival is the premier and largest film festival in Southeast Europe, and is one of the largest film festivals in Europe. It was founded in Sarajevo in 1995 during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War, and brings international and local celebrities to Sarajevo every year. It is held in August and showcases an extensive variety of feature and short films from around the world. The current director of the festival is Mirsad Purivatra, former CEO of the Bosnian branch of McCann Erickson.
The Sarajevo War Theatre is a theatre in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was founded on 17 May 1992 on the initiative of Dubravko Bibanović, Gradimir Gojer, Đorđe Mačkić and Safet Plakalo during the Siege of Sarajevo. It was a gathering place for theatre professionals and Academy of Performing Arts students for the duration of the war. Today, it is a commercial theatre and the premium experimental showcase in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is one of the venues for the MESS International Theatre Festival and the sole venue for the Open University of Sarajevo.
Haris Pašović is a Bosnian theatre director. Over the course of his career, he has also worked as a playwright, producer, choreographer, performer, and designer. He is best known for his productions of Wedekind's “Spring Awakening”. He is the artistic leader of the East West Theatre Company in Sarajevo and tenured Professor of Directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo.
East West Theatre Company was established in 2005 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a nonprofit cultural institution which produces performing arts programs, publications, films, and music events. It also organizes touring shows, discussions, forums, master-classes and workshops. Important components of its work include a creation of new work and a commitment to international cooperation.
Snježana Martinović is an actress who has appeared in Bosnian-Herzegovinan, Croatian, French, German, Italian and Slovenian films and theatre productions.
Ronald Rand is an American stage and film actor, educator, director, playwright, librettist, producer, and newspaper publisher. A U.S. Cultural Goodwill Ambassador, Rand has performed his one-man show, "Let It Be Art!" as Harold Clurman since 2001 in 25 countries and 20 states.}}</ref> Founder and Publisher of the newspaper, The Soul of the American Actor, he is also the author of Create: How Extraordinary People Live to Create and Create to Live, and Acting Teachers of America.
Zlatko Topčić is a Bosnian screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He has written a number of films, including: Remake, The Abandoned, Miracle in Bosnia; theater plays: Time Out, I Don't Like Mondays, Refugees; novels: The Final Word, Dagmar, Nightmare.
The Abandoned is a 2010 Bosnian drama film directed by Adis Bakrač, produced by Almir Šahinović and Marie-Anne Coste. The film is a Croatian-French co-production. It stars Mira Furlan, Tony Grga, Mirsad Tuka, Mirela Lambić, Dragan Marinković, Meto Jovanovski, Zijah Sokolović, and was written by Zlatko Topčić. His script caught the attention of producers after winning the 2003 CineLink Screenwriting Competition.
Darko Lukić is a Croatian theatre scholar, writer, cultural theorist and playwright living and working in Germany. As an expert in multi-disciplinary expert pool for capacity building for European Capitals of Culture worked at audience development program ADESTE+. and Rijeka, European capital of Culture 2020. Lukić also publishes scientific papers and participates in international conferences and seminars and translates from English and Spanish language. He is the member of Programme Board of Maribor 2012, European Capital of Culture 2012. He was a member of the European jury of theatrologists for “Premio Europa per il teatro” award (2009), member of the jury for “Marko Fotez” theatre award of HAZU (Croatian Academy of Science and Arts, president of the Board of Gavella Theatre, editor in Hrvatsko glumište magazine HDDU, artistic advisor of HAVC, Hrvatski audiovizualni centar, artistic advisor of Ministry of Culture - Ministarstvo kulture RH and HRT for film, member of the Cultural Council for Performing Arts of Croatian Ministry of Culture, president of the Theatre Committee of the City of Zagreb, member of the Council for International Cultural Cooperation of the City of Zagreb, and President of the Cultural Council for International Cooperation Ministry of Culture - Ministarstvo kulture RH, and member of Croatian centre of PEN International, member of IETM, CAE, ENCATC, Memory Studies Association, IFTR and EASTAP.
Maja Milinković is a Bosnian fado singer and songwriter, born in Sarajevo, the capital of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Open University of Sarajevo is a non-profit experimental school for interactive education, social activism and public debate. Themes that the school has delt with include Neo-Marxism, Yugoslavism, psychoanalysis, Third wave feminism, Crisis theory, Post-Colonialism, Historical revisionism, Post-fascism, social constructionism, revolutionary democracy, linguistic nationalism and philosophy of existence. The school has a festival format and is organized once a year in December. It nurtures the traditions of the Praxis School – a Yugoslav Marxist humanist philosophical movement, whose members were influenced by Western Marxism and organized the Korčula Summer School. The Open University of Sarajevo was an outspoken advocate of the 2014 Bosnia and Herzegovina social riots and called for the continuation of direct democracy that was established by plenums during and subsequently after the riots. The school runs a Free-to-view platform that streams all of its content online, dubbed in various languages, and archives it on its website and YouTube channel. The organizers negate the term school, preferring to use the term platform.
Nihad Kreševljaković is a Bosnian historian, producer, screenwriter and director of the Sarajevo War Theatre.
The MESS International Theatre Festival (MESS) is a theatre festival that takes place annually in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the oldest living theatre festival in the Balkans, programming international experimental performances and emerging artists. MESS was the largest theatre festival in the Former Yugoslavia and was named one of Living Theatre's international showcases in 1974. It survived the Siege of Sarajevo, during which it hosted directors such as Susan Sontag and Peter Schumann. It organized the first edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival in 1993 and still acts as a collective board member today. Today it is the largest theatre festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina and one of the largest in South-Eastern Europe. In 2009 it expanded its activities to the city of Zenica, which now hosts parts of the regional program.
FEDU is an annual children's art festival held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is held in May, lasts for six days and showcases extensive performing arts, literary and music programs from around the world. Furthermore, it organizes numerous workshops for children between the ages of 6 and 14. The festival was established in 2015 by a team headed by children's writer Fahrudin Kučuk in cooperation with the government of the Sarajevo Canton. The main festival venue is the Sarajevo National Theatre. The festival has hosted productions from over 20 countries. It is the only international children's art festival in the Balkans.
The Sarajevo Irish Festival is an annual festival held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina that celebrates Irish culture. The festival was established in 2015 and is held for three days around and including St. Patrick's Day. It was founded by Irish expatriates in Bosnia and Herzegovina in cooperation with the Bosnian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culture Ireland. The festival hosts Irish theatre companies, screens Irish films and organizes concerts of Irish folk musicians. The festival has hosted numerous Irish artists, filmmakers, theatre directors and musicians such as Conor Horgan, Ailis Ni Riain, Dermot Dunne, Mick Moloney, Chloë Agnew and others.
The VIVA Film Festival is an annual documentary film festival that is based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The festival showcases international films with ecological, religious and touristic themes, as well as youth-made films. It was established by an international team of film professionals, environmentalists, diplomats, religious leaders and scholars that includes former US Vice President Al Gore, Bosnian archeologist Semir Osmanagić, Austrian diplomat currently serving as the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Valentin Inzko and others, with the purpose of promoting inter-religious dialogue, the preservation of the environment and ecotourism.
The International Center for Children and Youth is a cultural and arts center located in the Novo Sarajevo municipality, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was constructed in 1961 and was originally named the Vaso Pelagić Cultural Center after Vasa Pelagić, the 19th century Bosnian Serb writer, physician, educator, clergyman, nationalist and a proponent of utopian socialism. The center was heavily devastated during the Bosnian war and was subsequently renovated in 1997. In 2001 the center was expanded, rebranded and reestablished as the International Center for Children and Youth.
The Sarajevo Youth Theatre is a children's and youth theatre in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was founded in 1950 under the name Pioneer Theatre. It is the largest theatre of its kind in the country.
