Award for The Best SmartDoc Project Goes To Merima Barakovic

Merima Baraković's "Mother" project uniquely highlights how women, as pillars of the family and wider community, foster resilience, unity and hope across generation.

The Seventh AJB DOC Film Festival, held from September 13 to 17, 2024 in Sarajevo, in addition to screening the best documentaries from the past year and organizing professional industry meetings, also confirms its significant place in the field of documentary film production due to the opportunity it offers to young authors from the region through the organization of the training "Smartphone Documentary Film Production", the result of which is the SmartDoc youth selection.

All participants in the training, which has been held on this topic for a few years in a row, had a deadline to submit a project idea that would be considered for the SmartDoc award, and after the deadline a dozen received projects were evaluated, of which the project "Mother" by Merima Baraković stood out due to the precision of its development, quality and importance of the topic.

"The 'Mother' project uniquely emphasizes how women, as pillars of the family and the wider community, foster resilience, unity and hope across generations, which is why we are awarding the SmartDoc award to the author of the project, Merima Baraković," the organizers said in their decision.

Merima Baraković, the author of the best idea, is the winner of a cash prize of 1,500 euros, a Samsung Galaxy S 24 Ultra mobile phone, awarded by sponsors Samsung and Domod, and mentoring support in the filming process. It is also planned to show the recorded documentary film at the next edition of the AJB DOC Film Festival as part of the SmartDoc selection.

Merima did not hide her emotions because of the award she won, and the opportunity offered by the AJB DOC Film Festival to realize her idea. When asked for a comment, Merima said that she was happy because she had the opportunity to participate in the training and improve her knowledge of creating content with a smartphone.

"Smartphones give us freedom when we really need to tell and record what we want in a creative way. Today, we are the best witness that we would be deprived of many stories if it were not for mobile production, with the example of Palestine, we saw how powerful these small devices are", said Merima and added that trainers Faris Bajrić and Jane Mote contributed to the expansion of her knowledge of production, which she graduated from, and that new information they shared about programs and equipment essential to the author's work was of a great importance for her.

"I am very happy to have received the award. I have a lot of stories that I would like to tell. The opportunity that the AJB DOC Film Festival offers is excellent, because in my opinion this is one of the best festivals in the region when it comes to documentary films", she concluded.

The training "Smartphone Documentary Film Production " for young authors at the AJB DOC Film Festival is designed to give an overview of how they can deal with content, using a mobile phone when recording a documentary film, after which the participants have a deadline to develop their own idea that competes for the SmartDoc award and the realization of the project and the screening of the film at the next edition of the Festival.