Marking its tenth anniversary, CineLink Industry Days' CineLink Drama continues to support high-quality drama series in development from Southeast Europe, bringing together established auteurs and emerging voices working across episodic storytelling. This year’s selection, which will be presented to industry professionals at the CineLink Drama Pitch during the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival (14-21 August), reflects a growing confidence in the region’s series landscape, with projects demonstrating strong international co-production potential and an increasing focus on intellectual property development and cross-format storytelling.

The seven selected projects span a wide range of genres and narrative approaches. Among the established names is Macedonian filmmaker Teona Strugar Mitevska (Mother, The Happiest Man in the World), who has co-created the horror-comedy Small Yugoslavia, following two vampire queens, with Slovenian director Sonja Prosenc. Academy Award-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanović (Death in Sarajevo, The Hollow) is involved in two projects: he co-directs the dramedy Hedgehogs in the Haze, following three women and a mysterious box that enters their lives, and helms the political thriller Stringers, created by Nikola Kuprešanin, which follows the investigation into the murder of a translator in Riga.

Turkish filmmaker Özcan Alper (Black Night) returns with the crime-thriller The Valley, centred on a string of brutal murders in a remote Black Sea village, while Slovenia’s Grega Švabič presents the action-comedy Chain Reaction, zooming in on a group of snowboarders uncovering a nuclear conspiracy. From Ukraine comes The 9th Border, a cross-border crime-thriller created by Vitalli Ye, and Croatia is represented by the family drama You Can Always Come Back, set during the Yugoslav war, created by Tena Gojić and written by Hana Jušić.

As in previous years, the selected teams will participate in an intensive development programme, beginning with an on-site workshop in April as part of the CineLink Industry Days initiative “Exploring Synergies: Managing Intellectual Property Across Creative Industries”. The workshop will focus on script development, financing strategies, marketing approaches and cross-industry collaboration, with a particular emphasis on adaptation and emerging storytelling formats, such as microdramas and vertical series.

Asja Krsmanović, head of CineLink, stated: “Throughout these ten years, we have come to recognise that the region is rich in strong ideas and compelling stories. At the same time, the craft of serialised storytelling has seen a significant rise in quality, steadily moving towards a more mature and refined level. This year’s CineLink Drama selection brings together seven diverse projects, spanning genres from political thriller to horror-comedy. It is an exciting line-up featuring projects from across the region, with stories set throughout Europe, from the Balkans to Scandinavia and the Baltics, and with strong, organic co-production potential. This selection demonstrates that, despite the dynamic and often challenging financing conditions for series production in the region, there remains a strong creative urgency among auteurs to engage with this format, and to tell compelling stories across genres and styles.”

Here are the projects selected for this year’s CineLink Drama:

The Valley (Turkey)
Creator-director: Özcan Alper
Writers: Özcan Alper, Erman Bostan
Production: Soner Alper (NAR FILM PRODUCTION)

Hedgehogs in the Haze (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Serbia/Bulgaria/Norway)
Creators-writers: Ermin Bravo, Džana Pinjo
Directors: Danis Tanović, Nermin Hamzagić
Production: Ishak Jalimam, Lara Grozdanić (Realstage)
Co-production: Brand Vision DOO, Agitprop, Para Film & Theatre AS

You Can Always Come Back (Croatia)
Creator: Tena Gojić
Writer: Hana Jušić
Production: Miljenka Čogelja (Pipser), Dinaridi Film

Stringers (Croatia)
Creator-writer: Nikola Kuprešanin
Director: Danis Tanović
Production: Siniša Juričić (Nukleus Film)

Small Yugoslavia (North Macedonia/Belgium)
Creators-writers: Teona Strugar Mitevska, Sonja Prosenc
Production: Labina Mitevska (Sisters and Brother Mitevski), Entre chien et loup

Chain Reaction (Slovenia)
Creator: Grega Švabič
Writers: Grega Švabič, Mirta Švabič Zajc, Jaka Šuligoj
Director: Jaka Šuligoj
Production: Peter Perunovič (E75)

The 9th Border (Ukraine)
Creator: Vitalli Ye
Writer: Vyacheslav Yushkov
Director: Valentin Shpakov
Production: Vitalli Ye (Starlight Films)