The latest film from Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic, Death in Sarajevo, has been selected as Bosnia & Herzegovina's submission in the best foreign-language film category at the Academy Awards.
Tanovic, who won an Oscar for No Man's Land in 2002, revisits the theme of the impact of the Balkans civil war of the 1990s in Death in Sarajevo, which premiered at the Berlinale this year where it won a Silver Bear.
The film is set in the fictional Hotel Europa, modeled on Sarajevo's famous Holiday Inn, where diplomats and members of the international press corps stayed during the war.
Set in 2014 on the day of the 100th anniversary of the assassination in Sarajevo of Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand, the film explores the way the complex history of the Balkans continues to affect people and their interactions.
A Bosnian-French co-production adapted from the stage play Hotel Europe by French intellectual and political activist Bernard Henri-Levy, which was staged in Sarajevo in 2014, the film was selected as the country's foreign-language Oscar submission on Wednesday by the Filmmakers Association of Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Produced by Francois Margolin and Amra Baksic Camo, international sales are being handled by The Match Factory.
