WARM Festival 2026 Opens in Sarajevo

The 2026 edition of the WARM Festival officially opened on 6 July with the exhibition Svjedoci (Witnesses) by one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most important contemporary artists, Nusret Pašić, followed by the festival’s opening ceremony, a presentation by FOTOEVIDENCE, and the first screening of this year’s WARM Movie Nights.

Presented at the Academy of Fine Arts Sarajevo, Svjedoci (Witnesses) brings together, for the first time in Sarajevo, a selection of seven works created by Pašić during the siege of Sarajevo and one created immediately after the 1992–95 war. Curated by Lejla Hodžić, the exhibition transforms the gallery into a space of personal testimony and collective memory, where sculptures, objects and installations bear witness not only to destruction, but also to the persistence of artistic creation in the midst of war.

During the siege, while Sarajevo was being systematically destroyed, Pašić gathered fragments from the city’s ruins—bricks, broken glass, burnt wood, wire, newspapers and even books recovered from the burned National Library—and transformed them into works of art. What had become symbols of devastation were reimagined as monuments to memory, resilience and human dignity. Throughout the exhibition, the recurring elongated human figures stand as silent witnesses, carrying memory through painting, sculpture and installation.

Nusret Pašić is among the most significant figures in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s contemporary art scene. A longtime professor and former dean of the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, he was also one of the founders of the Obala Art Center and the author of the landmark wartime exhibition Witnesses of Existence, presented in the destroyed Red Cross Building during the siege—an exhibition that became one of the defining artistic events of wartime Sarajevo.

Svjedoci (Witnesses) is presented in partnership with the University of Sarajevo and the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of the Sarajevo Canton, and remains open until 20 July at the Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts.

Later that evening, the festival officially opened at Kino Meeting Point, welcoming participants, guests and audiences to another edition dedicated to war reporting, art and memory.

The opening programme continued with Journalism Is Not a Crime, a presentation by Svetlana Bachevanova and FOTOEVIDENCE, highlighting the importance of independent journalism and the risks faced by reporters documenting conflict, injustice and human rights abuses around the world.

The first evening concluded with the opening screening of WARM Movie Nights: All That’s Left of You (2025), directed by Cherien Dabis. The film follows generations of a Palestinian family, exploring displacement, memory, love and resilience under occupation, setting a powerful tone for the week ahead.

With exhibitions, films, discussions and public events continuing across Sarajevo, WARM Festival 2026 once again brings together journalists, artists, photographers, filmmakers and researchers from around the world to explore the realities of conflict and the importance of preserving memory through reporting and art.

WARM Festival 2026 is made possible through the dedication of the members and friends of the WARM Foundation, together with the generous support of our partners, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for War Correspondents, Le Mémorial de Caen, Gallery 11/07/95, the Women Lead BiH initiative, supported by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, FES-SOE, Pro Peace, the Sarajevo Canton Tourist Board (Turistička zajednica Kantona Sarajevo), the University of Sarajevo, and many other institutions, organisations and individuals whose trust and collaboration make the festival possible.