During the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival, the 24th edition of CineLink (14-21 August) wrapped with an awards ceremony that honoured projects across many different stages of development and production. In the CineLink Co-Production Market, CineLink Work in Progress and CineLink Drama programmes, a total of €131,000 in prize money and an additional €60,000 in kind were handed out.

The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award (€20,000) went to Wolf Days, written and directed by Serbian filmmaker Emilija Gašić, known for her IFFR-premiered debut feature, 78 Days. Gašić described the project as a folk-horror responding to patriarchal systems – biomedical and personal – and their traumatic effects. It is centred on the middle-aged Jelena, who is going through the menopause and who carries out a series of escalating rituals after seeing a traditional healer, leading to her own empowerment over her husband, Marko, and her overall environment. Wolf Days was previously developed through the 2025 TorinoFilmLab.

Ukrainian filmmaker Oleksandr Roschchyn’s Mamayi went home with the Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award (€20,000), while Turkish filmmaker Selcen Ergun’s How to Disappear in the Lake ended up clutching the Film Center Montenegro CineLink Award (€10,000). Mamayi is a journalistic drama taking place in Ukraine in 2009 as two television journalists navigate choppy moral waters during the presidential election campaign. Meanwhile, How to Disappear in the Lake follows a spirited ten-year-old girl who discovers a woman’s body in the forest.

Debuting feature filmmaker Elena Mikaberidze took home two awards for her project The Taste of Peach: the Kosovo Cinematography Center CineLink Award (€10,000) as well as the Next Step Studio CineLink Award. The latter is a new prize presented to an emerging director, who will have the opportunity to present their project at the Cannes Critics’ Week’s Next Step Studio, the next edition of which will take place in Armenia. The Taste of Peach is inspired by Mikaberidze’s own experience as a Georgian-born, Brussels-raised filmmaker moving across borders, cultures, conflicts and identities.

Little Trouble Girls director Urška Djukić Lecamus’ second feature-film project, Forbidden Fruit, collected the ArteKino International Prize (€6,000). Inspired by the 15th-century story of Veronika of Desenice – who was subject to one of Europe’s earliest witch trials – and the discovery of what was her grave in a monastery, the tale reclaims the agency of a woman who has been depicted through time as a passive subject. The Slovenian writer-director described the story as existing at the confluence of the visibilisation of the female body and the spirituality innate in monastic celibacy, rather than purely a historical fiction.

The Female Voices CineLink Award (€20,000), presented in partnership with the Slovenian Film Centre and the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, went to creator-writers Teona Strugar Mitevska and Sonja Prosenc’s Little Yugoslavia, a feminist horror-comedy series about a woman in her fifties who transforms into a vampire queen. Two other series projects were crowned in the Drama programme: You Can Always Come Back (created by Tena Gojić and written by Hana Jušić) and Stringers (created and written by Nikola Kuprešanin, and directed by Danis Tanović).

In the Work in Progress programme for late-stage projects, Croatian director and screenwriter Filip Mojzeš took home the HBO Award for his project The First Week of August and an accompanying sum of €30,000, while two others took home in-kind prizes for post-production.

Here is the full list of award winners:

CineLink Co-Production Market

Eurimages Co-Production Development Award
Wolf Days – Emilija Gašić (Serbia/USA/Croatia)
Production: Dragana Jovović (Non-Aligned Films)
Co-production: Istok Films, Restart

Eurimages Special Co-Production Development Award
Mamayi – Oleksandr Roschchyn (Ukraine)
Production: Viktor Shevchenko (Packgauz)

Film Center Montenegro CineLink Award
How to Disappear in the Lake – Selcen Ergun (Turkey)
Production: Diloy Gülün (Karma Films), Selcen Ergun (Albino Zebra Film)

Kosovo Cinematography Center CineLink Award
The Taste of Peach – Elena Mikaberidze (North Macedonia/Belgium/Georgia)
Production: Labina Mitevska (Sisters and Brother Mitevski)
Co-production: Entre Chien et Loup, Takes Film, Nushi Film

ArteKino International Prize
Forbidden Fruit – Urška Djukić Lecamus (Slovenia/Greece)
Production: Luka Peterca (OINK! Pictures), Danae Spathara (Heretic)

Next Step Studio CineLink Award
Elena Mikaberidze – The Taste of Peach

CineLink Co-Production Market & CineLink Drama

Female Voices CineLink Award
Little Yugoslavia (North Macedonia/Belgium)
Creators/writers: Teona Strugar Mitevska, Sonja Prosenc
Production: Sisters and Brother Mitevski, Entre Chien et Loup

CineLink Drama

Croatian Audiovisual Center Drama Award
You Can Always Come Back (Croatia)
Creator: Tena Gojić
Writer: Hana Jušić 
Production: Pipser, Dinaridi Film

TV Drama Vision Pitch Award
Stringers (Croatia)
Creator/writer: Nikola Kuprešanin
Director: Danis Tanović
Production: Siniša Juričić (Nukleus Film)

CineLink Work in Progress

HBO Award
The First Week of August – Filip Mojzeš (Croatia/Poland)
Production: Tamara Babun Zovko (Wolfgang & Dolly), Matija Drniković (Black Photon)

Post Republic Award
The White Week – Bojan Vuletić (Serbia/Croatia/Slovenia/Montenegro)
Producers: Jelena Mitrović (Film House Baš Čelik), Boris T Matić (Propeler Film), Lana Matić (Propeler Film), Danijel Hočevar (Vertigo), Ivan Đurović (Artikulacija)

Avanpost Media Award
Pay the Bill – Assel Aushakimova (Kazakhstan/Saudi Arabia)
Production: Assel Yerzhanova (Film Film Film)

EAVE+ Award
Katya Trichkova