On January 29^th and 30^th, Sarajevo Open Centre will organise and host, for the fourth time, the International Festival of Queer Film Merlinka at the Art Cinema Kriterion in Sarajevo. This Festival has been organised for seven years in Belgrade with the goal to promote films tackling LGBT topics. The Festival is named after a murdered trans* person – Vjeran Miladinović Merlinka.

This year’s Merlinka in Sarajevo differs from the previous ones because it’s programme is different than the Belgrade Merlinka’s one – the featured films will be premiered, and the festival will last for two days. During these the two days of the festival programme, three feature-length films, four short films and a recording of the performance will be shown.

On Friday, 30^th January, the festival will be opened by the film Appropriate behaviour (Desiree Akhavan, USA, 2014, 86 min.) an exciting comedy with the focus on the emotional-erotic relations of the bisexual Shirin. During the second day of the festival, at 2 P.M. the documentary film Mask you live (USA, 2015, 97 min.) will be shown, this film pportraits how men become “real” men. From 4 P.M. the audience would see the recording of the hit performance piece Merlinka’s confession, about the life of Vjeran Miladinović, as well as the review of the short regional films (Jagoda, Roditeljska ljubav ne zna za granice, Like Other Girls Do, U prolazu). At 6 P.M. the documentary film The New Man (2015, Uruguay/Nicaragua/Chile, 79 min.) will be shown, a powerful story about transexuality. The special guests of the festival will be the members of Le Zbor, the first Croatian lesbian-feminist choir that was formed out of the desire to encourage and promote the lesbian-feminist socio-cultural visibility. Their concert will be the spectacular introduction to the big Merlinka party.

The detailed programme of the festival, synopsises and trailers will be published soon.