ENFF On Tour at De Balie with Jasmila Žbanić’s “Blum”
Join ENFF On Tour at Amsterdam’s De Balie on 12th October at 14:00 hours for a Dutch premiere of renowned Bosnian film director Jasmila Žbanić’s film “Blum – Masters of Their Own Destiny”.
Through the life of Emerik Blum, a post-WW2 socialist and one of the founders of modern Sarajevo, this film recalls a time when workers shaped their own futures and believed progress belonged to everyone.
Emerik Blum was the visionary engineer and one of the driving forces who transformed Sarajevo into a modern city fit to host the 1984 Winter Olympics. He established Energoinvest, the biggest exporting company in Yugoslavia, which at its peak had over forty thousand employees worldwide.
Žbanić portrays Energoinvest as a unique social experiment in addition to a massive business enterprise: employees took part in decision-making through Yugoslavia’s system of worker self-management, lived in apartments constructed by the company and took vacations in the workers’ apartments on the Adriatic coast. Blum emerges as a pragmatic innovator and paternal figure of the workers, negotiating and balancing the world divided between capitalism and socialism, thus creating a unique “Third Way”. Through the interviews with people who worked with him, the film honours his enormous accomplishments while also reflecting on Sarajevo’s terrible decline during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, reminding viewers of a pivotal period in Bosnian history that is both inspirational and irretrievable.
The screening will be followed by a talk with the director Jasmila Žbanić. Join us at De Balie for the premiere on the 12th October at 14:00 hours. Secure your tickets through the link below.
Film details
Director: Jasmila Žbanić
Original title: Blum – Gospodari svoje budućnosti
Year: 2024
Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Germany
Languages: Bosnian, English, German
Duration: 76′
Subtitles: English
Production: Damir Ibrahimović – Deblokada; Produkcija Živa, Razor Film
Screenplay: Jasmila Žbanić, Zoran Solomun
Cinematography: Simona Weisslechner, Denisa Buranová
Editing: Vladimir Gojun
Festivals & Awards (selection): MoMA, 2025 – Doc Fortnight (International Premiere) | Bosnian Herzegovinian Film Festival, New York | Zagreb Dox | Beldocs | Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg | UnderhillFest | Pula Film Festival
Director’s Bio
Jasmila Žbanić (Sarajevo, 1974) is an Oscar and BAFTA-nominated director. In 1997, together with
her friends, she founded the Artist’s Association “Deblokada” through which she produced, wrote
and directed her feature film “Grbavica”, awarded with Golden Bear at Berlinale 2006, Best film at the American Film Institute. “Quo Vadis, Aida?” premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and among
others received the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film, the European Film
Academy Award for Best film, director and main actress, as well as nominations for the Oscar of Best
International Feature Film, and two BAFTA Awards. She directed one episode of the acclaimed HBO
TV show “The Last of Us”. Her TV show “I Know Your Soul” was presented at the Venice Film Festival
in 2023.
Director’s Statement
From today’s perspective, when a company’s directors earn a thousand times more than their
employees, it is interesting to reflect on a time when the director of a globally successful company
had a salary only four times higher than his doorman, and the company’s profit was distributed for
the development of society, workers’ apartments, health, holidays, and education… At the same
time, it is a story about the history of Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Yugoslavia and society at the time of its
golden age in a way that has never been seen before. What was fascinating to me was the
enthusiasm, love, and incredible energy that the people of that time had who believed in a better
future. They made their original vision come true. I hope that the viewer who watches this film will
feel this great energy and will ask: What is the vision of OUR better future?
