Sarajevo on film 2015 Turkey / United Kingdom
Seasons of War
A debut feature shot on location in Sarajevo in 2014 and scheduled to premiere at the city's film festival — the war filmed in the city where it happened.
- Director
- Seda Eğridere
- Year
- 2015
- Language
- English
- Country
- Turkey / United Kingdom
- Genre
- war, romance, drama
Seasons of War is the feature debut of director Seda Eğridere, and its claim on a visitor’s attention is a practical one: the production was filmed on location in Sarajevo in July 2014, and the film was scheduled to premiere at the 2015 Sarajevo Film Festival — a festival that grew, like so much of the city’s postwar culture, directly out of the war. It is a war story told in the city where the war it depicts actually took place.
The film follows a romance set against the conflict, shot in the real streets of the city that a visitor now walks — the benefit of location filming being that the background is never a set. It belongs to the group of productions that chose to film in Sarajevo precisely because the city carries its history in its buildings and its light.
For a visitor, it is a film of the festival circuit’s own Sarajevo: made in the city, premiered at its festival, part of the same cultural ecosystem that turned a besieged capital into a place that could premiere films about itself. It is the debut of a director to watch, and a reminder that the city’s cinema is still being made, on its own streets.
Critical reception
Seasons of War has no recorded critical reception in the major English-language outlets — it is not indexed by Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic — and its record is limited to its scheduled premiere at the 2015 Sarajevo Film Festival. No professional reviews were locatable.
Public reception and legacy
The production itself was shaped by the region’s recent disasters: filming was delayed by the 2014 Southeast Europe floods, and Eğridere used the film’s Indiegogo campaign to raise flood relief. She cast only actors from the former Yugoslavia, most of whom lived through the war. Its IMDb page now lists a 2023 release, and no professional critical record exists.