Danis Tanović and Michel Franco to attend Ponta Lopud festival

(Patria) - Alongside the acclaimed Pawel Pawlikowski, who will hold his film masterclass as part of the first Ponta Lopud festival, our Oscar winner Danis Tanović and the director with a striking and recognizable cinematic language, Mexican director Michel Franco, have also confirmed their arrival at Lopud and participation in the Festival.

Both guests, Tanović and Franco, will be available to all participants of the Ponta Lopud film masterclass for discussions about film during informal gatherings while they are staying at Lopud, further confirming Lopud's status as a true meeting and gathering place for established and emerging film authors.

Danis Tanović was born in 1969 in Zenica. For his debut film "No Man's Land", he received the award for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 and the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2002. "No Man's Land" won a total of 42 awards, making it one of the most awarded debut films in film history. For the films "An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker" and "Death in Sarajevo", Tanović was awarded the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013 and 2016.

He currently lives in Sarajevo, where he works as a professor of directing at the Academy of Performing Arts. He recently finished shooting his latest feature film "Deset u pola" (Ten in a Half), the plot of which is set in the heart of Sarajevo's Baščaršija.

Michel Franco, born in 1979 in Mexico City, has brought Mexican cinema to the center of global attention. Films he has written, directed, and produced include "Chronic" (award for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015), "Las Hijas de Abril" / "April's Daughter" (jury prize in the "Un Certain Regard" section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017), and "Después de Lucía" / "After Lucia" (main prize of the "Un Certain Regard" section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012).

Among the films he has produced are "600 Millas" (directed by Gabriel Ripstein, winner of the award for best debut at Berlinale 2015) and "From Afar" (directed by Lorenzo Vigas, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2015). He set the plot of his latest film "Nuevo Orden", which began screening this spring, in a dystopian Mexico City.

Both directors are also recipients of the special recognition "Honorary Heart of Sarajevo" from the Sarajevo Film Festival. Danis Tanović received the award in 2014, and Franco last year when, during the 26th Festival, special recognition was also given to him with a retrospective of his works in the festival program "Tribute to".

The Ponta Lopud festival is organized in cooperation with the Sarajevo Film Festival, specifically with the CineLink festival program, and takes place from July 1 to 5.