"With the harmony of nature and man's work, a unique song – White Sarajevo – sprouted under the slopes of Trebević!"

This title is the start of a twenty-five-minute film, about a hundred years old, which the Sarajevo Film Centre team found in a box marked only with "Sarajevo 1920". This work of unknown authors, originally shot in the luxurious 35 mm format, this black and white silent piece is a superb example of the then extremely popular genre of travel documentaries. "Sarajevo 1920" depicts the natural beauty, architecture and the way of life in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period immediately after the First World War.

The film, which you can now see for the first time, has been fully digitized as part of the Sarajevo Film Centre project dedicated to the digitization of BiH film material. The seven-minute clip from the film released seven years ago on Youtube has garnered hundreds of thousands of views and provoked emotional comments not just from Sarajevans but from all those fascinated by this precious glimpse into the past of a city. There were controversies – whether life was better then or now, whether the city has changed or remained the same – and some comments have arguably questioned the year when the film was created. Since the Temple dome can be seen in some shots, and the construction of this large Jewish temple began only in 1926,  and because some women walking around the city are dressed according to fashion trends from the late 20s, some believe that the film was shot somewhat later, most likely in the early 1930s.

Whether it was made in the time of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes or the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the value of "Sarajevo 1920" cannot be disputed. On the one hand, it is an important historical record, while on the other it is an important cinematic document, an artistically successful piece in which the authors showed a lot of craftsmanship, a good sense of dramaturgy, timing and frame composition. Mainly static establishment shots were used to "record" Sarajevo from east to west, from Kozja Ćuprija to Vrelo Bosne. After the "establishment" of a particular location, whether this was Kazandžiluk in Baščarsija, the promenade on Sedrenik or the beach on Bentbasa, the filmmakers devote their attention to the details that make up some of the most beautiful scenes in the film: women embroidering scarves on their home veranda, young coppersmiths tapping at tin containers with their hammers, a baker's apprentice balancing a long board with a mound of somun flatbreads on his head, prayer in the Bey's Mosque courtyard, an impressive camera ride along the Sarači Street, figures in the ethnographic department of the National Museum, a dog passing by a sulfur spring at the Ilidža Spa and the camera turning around to follow him...

Today, in the time of wild urbanization and unplanned construction, "Sarajevo 1920" is a valuable reminder of the importance of preserving our cultural and historical heritage and natural beauty, as well as film material.

Dario Bevanda, playwright