20/10/2026 - The festival's director discusses the maturity of the Balkan film industries, the 60 young filmmakers taking part in the pitching competition and European integration driven from the grassroots

Mario Bova, founder and artistic director of the Euro Balkan Film Festival (the ninth edition of which will take place from 31 October-7 November), talks to us about the growing maturity of the Balkan film industries, the 60 young filmmakers taking part in the pitching competition and European integration driven from the grassroots.

Cineuropa: The Euro Balkan Film Festival has grown over the years, cementing its role as a meeting place for the region’s film industries and Italian audiences. How has the festival changed, and what are its main priorities today, including in terms of developing professional activities and industry events?
Mario Bova: The festival is evolving gradually, first and foremost in response to the films themselves, which are changing: they are becoming increasingly significant, more interesting and of ever-higher quality. Film production in the Balkans is growing continuously, and in organising the festival, we can clearly see that progress from one year to the next. We have reached a point where all of the Balkan countries are now capable of producing films of considerable quality.

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When I began this work in 2012, I noticed differences between countries: some were not able to express themselves cinematically in a meaningful way. That is no longer the case: every Balkan country has reached a truly remarkable level of maturity, and the movies we are presenting this year are even more interesting than those of a few years ago.

This year, in particular, the festival has a much stronger training and development dimension aimed at young filmmakers than it did in previous years. It is a significant strand, focused above all on supporting pitching and other industry activities through a competition that has attracted 60 young filmmakers and seeks to encourage co-productions involving emerging talents within an increasingly Europeanised industry. That is where the gradual change compared with previous years lies.

The Balkans currently occupy a particularly sensitive position in Europe’s geopolitical landscape, amid renewed tensions, political transformations and the process of European integration. What role can cinema play in fostering mutual understanding and portraying a region that is often viewed in accordance with geopolitical rather than cultural categories?
Cinema has the ability to dig into the roots of the memory and European culture of each Balkan country, and thereby explain the reasons for and motivations behind integration, developing mutual knowledge and understanding, and encouraging closer ties. In this region, cinema has a powerful ability to promote the integration of cinematic languages, professional skills and markets. It is therefore a genuinely important driver of integration – industrial, cultural and institutional. This particular role of cinema within broader integration initiatives deserves to be emphasised.

The integration of the Western Balkan countries into the European Union remains one of the continent’s major political issues. From the perspective of someone who works closely with the cultures and film industries of the region, do you think greater European integration is necessary? And what contribution could cinema and culture make to this process?
Greater European integration in the film and audiovisual sector is becoming extremely useful and therefore necessary. For example, it provides financial resources for co-productions, which have become indispensable to the growth of cinema. As professional skills develop, co-production activities in Europe generate more business and therefore provide a further economic boost to the industry and employment. From this perspective, too, we are seeing substantial growth.

I would say that integration is certainly necessary. Indeed, it is already progressing, and we are aware that relations within this geographical area are now characterised by a system-wide Europeanisation that is bringing truly important benefits, including in terms of quality, understanding and the cultural integration that cinema supports. What we have seen in Balkan cinema in recent years is a spontaneous effort towards integration, arising from the interplay of many factors. Together, these factors are bringing people increasingly closer to mutual understanding, and such developments form the foundations of integration.

The festival will discuss these integration-related issues at a dedicated “European Authors’ Workshop”, focusing on the prospects for AgoraEU and the conditions necessary for developing co-productions in the age of artificial intelligence. We are, after all, faced with the need for an integrated Europe: this is a message that passes from culture and this collaborative activity to politicians, encouraging them to develop a much more appropriate form of political integration.

(Translated from Italian)