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Canneseries entry “Operation Sabre” goes back in time to Serbia’s very own Kennedy moment: the day when its first democratically elected Pm, Zoran Đinđić, was murdered.

“Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the assassination. This moment didn’t just change our politics. It changed our lives,” says producer Snezana van Houwelingen.

“He was in power for more than two years and during that time, many people actually moved back from abroad. It was our last moment of hope. Now, we are just going in circles and there is no progress. We have to do something for the next generation, the one that doesn’t even remember him anymore.”

Đinđić, who served as Pm from 2001, was killed in 2003 – one year after the beginning of the trial against former president Slobodan Milošević.

“He played such an important role in this country’s crucial moments.

Beta Film has acquired international distribution rights to Serbian crime thriller “Operation Sabre” (“Sablja”) about the assassination of the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić.

The eight-hour series – selected for Canneseries’ Long Form Competition – is created and directed by Goran Stanković and Vladimir Tagić. The duo already collaborated on “Morning Changes Everything” and wrote the new show alongside Dejan Prćić, Maja Pelević and Marjan Alčevs.

Heading back to March 12, 2003, Stanković and Tagić show the aftermath of the killing that threw the whole country into chaos – only one year after the beginning of the trial against former president Slobodan Milošević, indicted in 1999 for war crimes.

Đinđić, who served as Pm from 2001, following a stint as mayor of Belgrade, advocated pro-democratic reforms. He was also one of the co-leaders of the opposition to Milošević’s administration.

“Operation Sabre” is produced by Snezana van Houwelingen for This and That Productions, in co-production with Martichka Bozhilova...

HBO Max has acquired Central and Eastern Europe rights to “I Know Your Soul,” the crime drama series by Oscar-nominated Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić. The show, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is currently playing as part of the Agora Series TV strand of the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Also included in the deal, which was brokered by Munich-based production and distribution outfit Beta Film, is the Serbian thriller “Children of Evil,” based on the best-selling novel by Miodrag Majić.

Further negotiations with key European buyers are underway for both shows.

“I Know Your Soul” is a six-episode limited series, written, directed and produced by Žbanić, who also serves as showrunner. The cast is led by European Film Award-winning actor Jasna Đuričić, who plays Nevena Murtezic, a prosecutor in the process of divorce and single mother to a teenage son. The case of an adolescent’s suicide triggers an...

“Bad Blood,” an ambitious new Serbian feature film and TV series, has become the first project from the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Drama co-financing forum to go into production since the event’s establishment in 2016.

Set in the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century, “Bad Blood” is based on the works of renowned Serbian writer Borisav Stankovic and a script written by Yugoslav filmmaker Voja Nanovic in the early 1970s while he was living in New York City and working for ABC Studios as an editor. Belgrade-based This and That Productions is producing.

Spanning four decades in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, the series chronicles an era beset by major political change and turmoil, when peasants began rising up in strength to the detriment of wealthy merchant families. It follows Trifun, the wealthy leader of the Christian minority, who, while trying to preserve his wealth and power,...

Goran Stanković and Vladimir Tagić, the creators of hit Serbian TV drama “Morning Changes Everything,” are developing a political thriller revolving around the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and a reporter’s investigation of the murder.

“Sabre” is one of five projects in early development taking part in the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Drama co-financing forum. The platform is aimed at the development of high-quality TV drama series from Southeastern Europe.

Stanković and Tagić began developing “Sabre” when they finished their previous series, “Morning Changes Everything,” which screened last year at CineLink’s Avant Premiere Program. The series follows the lives of four 30-year-old friends in Belgrade as they struggle to find their place in society.

“Once we wrapped ‘Morning Changes Everything,’ we felt like we told the story we set out to tell, and although there was a demand for the second season, we decided to...