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BHFF JURY AWARDS

Since 2012, BHFF™ awarded BHFF™ Jury Awards to the most outstanding films screened at the BHFF™ and selected by jury members as most outstanding in its categories. Members of the BHFF™ Jury are accomplished and recognized members from the Bosnian and American cultural, film, and art communities who have significantly contributed to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian film industry and culture in general.

BHFF™ jury awards the following honors to the most outstanding films:

BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Documentary Film
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Short Narrative Film
BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Feature Narrative Film

BHFF™ Jury Award for Best Acting Performance

JURY MEMBERS 2024

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Erdem Helvacıoğlu

Erdem Helvacıoğlu is a New York based film composer, sound designer, music producer, and educator. With a portfolio spanning over 20 feature documentaries, narrative, and short films, his compositions have graced prestigious international film festivals including Rotterdam, Locarno, Istanbul, Berlin, and Cannes. Notably, his score for the short film "Boreas," directed by Belma Bas, earned a nomination for the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Praised by the Hollywood Reporter for his work on "Seaburners," premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival 2014, Helvacıoğlu has garnered acclaim for his outstanding soundwork. Beyond film, he has been honored with awards for his electroacoustic music compositions and has collaborated with renowned artists like Gorillaz, Fatboy Slim, and Nina Persson. Helvacıoğlu's solo and duo albums, released by esteemed labels, have earned placements on numerous "best albums of the year" lists. Additionally, he imparts his expertise in music technology as a faculty member at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

Saida Hodžić

Saida Hodžić is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University and the organizer of the Refugees Know Things project. She grew up in Mostar, lived as a refugee in Croatia and Germany, and got her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. Her award-winning book The Twilight of Cutting: African Activism and Life after NGOs (University of California Press, 2017) traces imperial and anti-imperial connections between forms of rule and activism and knowledge formations. Her current projects examine enduring structures of war and empire (militarization, global apartheid, borders, toxicity, censorship) and dissent (solidarity, organizing, arts and activism, creative-critical epistemologies).

Ines Tanović

Ines Tanović is an award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer. In 1991, she founded the film production company Dokument Sarajevo, now co-managed with producer Alem Babić. From 2014 to 2019, she served as the president of the Association of Filmmakers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (UFRBiH). Her directorial work includes documentaries and TV series as well as short and narrative feature films, including the Bosnian segment of the concept film "Some Other Stories" (2010) and the FIPRESCI prize-winning feature "Our Everyday Story" (2015). Tanović’s second feature film, "The Son" (2019) premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2019 and represented Bosnia and Herzegovina as an official Oscar nominee that year. She is a graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo and the current General Director of Sarajevo Film Center.

Over the last 10 years, BHFF has introduced a total of 30 jury members, representatives of Bosnian-Herzegovinian, American, and international film, arts, and literary communities, who have provided invaluable critical and curatorial reviews of works selected and presented at the BHFF.

The twentieth annual BHFF will run in person from April 24 to April 27, 2024.