Hollywood Murder, Queer Secrets, and a Balkan Twist: CineLink’s Wildest Award Winners Just Dropped—and You’re Gonna Want In on This Chaos!
Added on August 22, 2025 inMovie News Cards
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Ever wonder if the stars could predict the drama and decadence unfolding not just in Hollywood’s glitzy streets but also in the tangled narratives of Eastern Europe’s cinematic gems? Well, this week at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, the cosmos threw quite the curveball during its 2025 CineLink Industry Days Awards. Leading the constellation of winners is Places Half Empty, a bold and intimate portrayal of a queer relationship set in the charged political atmosphere of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary—a tale as complex and provocative as a Mercury retrograde with a side of Mars in Scorpio. Not far behind—or should I say, orbiting just close enough—is Gorilla, a 1960s Paris-set thriller where the fragile brotherhood of a French movie star and his Yugoslav bodyguard gets shattered by a Hollywood murder mystery, echoing the lunar moods that keep secrets well hidden until the perfect eclipse. As projects from Southeast Europe and the MENA region take their scripted destinies into new realms, one can’t help but ask: Are these stories just art, or are they the universe’s way of whispering truths through film? Buckle up, stargazers and cinephiles—this festival’s winners shine with all the drama of the zodiac at its most theatrical. LEARN MORE
The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled the winners of its 2025 CineLink Industry Days Awards, including the Places Half Empty, a portrait of a queer relationship in Hungary under far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which received the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award.
Among other winners is Gorilla, recipient of the TV Drama Vision Pitch Award, which is set in 1960s Paris, where a French movie star and his Yugoslav bodyguard’s brotherhood is threatened by a Hollywood murder.
Projects in different formats and stages of development from Southeast Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were presented in its 23rd edition. And now, prizes have been handed out in the CineLink Co-Production Market, CineLink Work in Progress, and CineLink Drama sections.
The 31st edition of the Sarajevo festival wraps up today, Friday.
Below is a look at the CineLink winners.
CINELINK CO-PRODUCTION MARKET AWARDS
Eurimages Co-Production Development Award
Places Half Empty
Synopsis: “A controversial and intimate portrait of a queer relationship in the context of Orbán’s Hungary.”
Director: Dorka Vermes
Writer: Sára Törley-Havas
Producers: Evelyn Balogh, Botond Lelkes
Production Company: Non Lieu Kft.
Country: Hungary
Award in the amount of €20,000
Film Center Montenegro Cinelink Award
Stone Over Stone
Synopsis: “Shams and her husband arrive from their village and settle into an unfinished construction site where he works to repay gambling debts. He is lured back into his addiction, so Shams, who is pregnant, is left to drift among the outcasts living on the margins, until the collapse around her forces an unthinkable decision about the life she carries inside her.”
Director: Hilal Baydarov
Writers: Hilal Baydarov, Georg Tiller
Producers: Maéva Ranaïvojaona, Georg Tiller, Hilal Baydarov
Production Company: Subobscura Films
Co-production Company: Ucqar Film
Countries: Austria, Azerbaijan
Award in the amount of €10,000
Film Center Serbia Cinelink Award
Pogana
Synopsis: “On a faraway Dalmatian island in the 1920s, Pogana, a woman from the inlands, is sold to be the new wife of a widower sailor with five children. When the sailor is lost at sea, Pogana is left at the mercy of the cruel villagers and their customs.”
Director: David Kapac
Writers: Andrija Mardešić, David Kapac
Producers: Rea Rajčić, Tina Tišljar
Production Company: Eclectica
Co-Production Companies: Vertigo
Countries: Croatia, Slovenia
Award in the amount of €10,000
Artekino International Prize
Two Little Nightmares
Synopsis: “Thirty years after his father’s suicide wiped a year from his memory, Matija returns home. As he pieces together the past, he unearths a long-buried betrayal, a haunting secret, and the terrified boy he once was.”
Director: Nebojša Slijepčević
Writers: Nebojša Slijepčević, Nađa Petrović
Producers: Danijel Pek, Katarina Prpić
Production Company: Antitalent
Co-Production Companies: Sense Production, Studio Virc, Contrast Films, Les Films Norfolk
Co-Producers: Milan Stojanović, Boštjan Virc, Katya Trichkova, Noelle Levenez
Countries: Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, France
Award in the amount of €6,000
CINELINK CO-PRODUCTION MARKET & CINELINK DRAMA
Female Voices Cinelink Award
Rain Country
Synopsis: “In early 2000s Istanbul, high school senior Gül’s secret is exposed after her classmate’s suicide, turning her life upside down. Gül embarks on a journey to find her inner strength for independence and growth.”
Director: Zeynep Köprülü
Writers: Zeynep Köprülü, Haziran Düzkan
Producers: Utku Zeka, Zeynep Köprülü, Cansu Menlikli
Production Company: Periferi Film
Country: Türkiye
Award in the amount of €20,000
CINELINK DRAMA
Council of Europe Series Co-Production Development Award
Red Water
Synopsis: “In 1989, at the Croatian seaside, a family is shattered when their daughter disappears. Her dark secrets disintegrate the community over two decades until the return of the former investigator unveils the truth.”
Creator: Ljubica Luković
Writers: Ljubica Luković, Jurica Pavičić
Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović
Producer: Danijel Pek
Production Company: Antitalent
Country: Croatia
Award in the amount of €50,000
Croatian Audiovisual Center Drama Award
Wonderful
Synopsis: “Dissatisfied with the way her life has turned out, a woman starts waking up on the mornings when she made some of the key decisions that shaped it. She takes alternate paths towards different lives that could have been.”
Creators and Writers: Katarina Mitrović, Isidora Veselinović, Vladimir Tagić
Directors: Vladimir Tagić, Isidora Veselinović
Producer: Marija Stojanović
Production Company: Sense Production
Country: Serbia
Award in the amount of €15,000
TV Drama Vision Pitch Award
Gorilla
Synopsis: “In the decadent world of 1960s Paris, a French movie star and his Yugoslav bodyguard’s powerful brotherhood shatters when a Hollywood murder threatens to destroy them both.”
Creator: Gabor Krigler
Writers: Eszter Angyalosy, Cyril Tysz
Director: Christian Gudegast
Producer: Ivana Miković
Production Company: Firefly Productions
Country: Serbia
CINELINK WORK IN PROGRESS AWARDS
HBO Award
Who Are We
Synopsis: “After a pupil’s suicide, a school trip exposes the haunting path to tragedy. As the journey unfolds, the bullies are the same, the victims are new, and the shadow of the dead pupil looms over them all.”
Director: Miroslav Terzić
Producer: Snežana van Houwelingen
Production Company: This and That Productions
Co-Production Companies: Nightswim, Invictus, PTD, Kinorama
Countries: Serbia, Italy, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Croatia
Award in the amount of €30,000
Turkish National Radio Television Award
Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep
Synopsis: “In a valley veiled by fog and tribal codes, two sisters walk into the night not as daughters, but as offerings — where blood, memory, and silence attempt to keep the fire from spreading.”
Director: Rakan Mayasi
Producer: Jennifer Ritter, Rakan Mayasi
Production Company: Atata
Countries: Belgium, Palestine, Lebanon
Award in the amount of €10,000
Post Republic Award
Where To?
Synopsis: “The different taxi rides across the city of Berlin between Hassan, a middle-aged Palestinian Uber driver, and young Israeli who gets lost in the city, tell a tragic-comic story about moving forward.”
Director: Assaf Machnes
Producers: Tomer Mecklberg, Haim Mecklberg, Oren Rogovin, Mohamad Babi
Production Company: 2 Team Productions
Co-Production Companies: Lev Cinema, Rogovin Brothers, Iconoclast Germany
Country: Israel, Germany
Award in the amount of €30,000 in kind
Avanpost Media Award
17
Synopsis: “After having a threesome with her classmates, Sara, 17, gets pregnant and tries to hide it from everyone, which becomes especially difficult during the graduation excursion.”
Director: Kosara Mitić
Producer: Tomi Salkovski
Production Company: Black Cat Production
Coproduction companies: Art&Popcorn, December
Countries: North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia
Award in the amount of €30,000 in kind
CINELINK WORK IN PROGRESS AND DOCU ROUGH CUT BOUTIQUE AWARDS
Think-Film Impact Production Award
Lost and Found: Romania’s Hidden Adoption Market
Synopsis: “When a young Canadian woman who was sold as an infant in post-Ceaușescu Romania returns to reclaim her identity, she uncovers the machinery that trafficked the sister she never knew, one of 30,000 children ‘exported’ for adoption.”
Director: Laurentiu Garofeanu
Producer: Laurentiu Garofeanu
Editor: Iulian Ghervas
Production company: Mekanism Media (RO)
Country: Romania
Length: 90 min
Award in the amount of €20,000 in kind
Eave + Award
Marija Stojanović
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