Seventh Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC) will be held between 13th and 17th September 2024 in Sarajevo. The Festival will also include a program for documentary industry professionals, AJD Industry Days. In addition to high-quality selection of documentaries to be screened during the Festival, there will also be an accompanying program consisting of special screenings, panels and training for young filmmakers, as well as many other activities related to the promotion of documentary film.

From the first year, AJB DOC Film Festival organizers have adopted a practice of defining the main annual theme which they present to the viewers through a selection of excellent documentaries. Each year it was a theme depicting social events in the context of screened films, as well as overall societal trends, and it was for this reason that this year’s chosen theme is “JUSTICE?”.

As a Festival focusing on universal human values and one which wishes to affirm filmmakers concerned with social phenomena, we undertook the task of examining universal notions, truths, circumstances and relations within society we live in, as the world we were born into will not even be close to the world we will leave to our descendants.

For this reason theme JUSTICE? and the examination of this noble idea comes at an opportune moment when tangible and global tectonic shifts are being exhibited in significant changes in the balance of power between countries, mass killings of not only people, but nations, aggression on sovereign states, migrations, political turmoil, economic empowerment of some and impoverishment of others, redefining of many well-established notions, including technological progress that will take us who knows how far or where.

As time passes, it seems as if everything that was agreed upon through universal social norms becomes a thing to be examined. There is a lack of strong action to preserve moral and ethical postulates propagated as a symbol of progressive systems and serving as a basis of modern society. There is no defense of justice and fairness for all, but only empty words and voices getting stronger or fading away depending on the interest spheres. There are many anomalies in the system or intentional denial of laws, contracts, rights and obligations, dignity of human existence and fair treatment of every human being. It is therefore about time to start asking ourselves about personal and social justice and injustice and take a stance, as well as witness those stories told in films which will be screened.

Art is tasked with dealing with issues of wider significance, sometimes painful, forbidden, ignored or marginalized, but too important to be quiet about. Our task is to give voice to those who have been denied it, and current Festival theme JUSTICE? speaks about and examines precisely that.

As a reminder, the Competition program will screen documentaries intended for TV broadcast, Last Minute Cinema will screen feature documentary films, while AJB Screening will offer best documentaries from the region. SmartDoc selection is reserved for young filmmakers and special screenings will also be organized.