Bosnian director Pjer Žalica recently found himself standing before Sarajevo’s National Theater, which in less troubled times would have hosted the world premiere of his comic drama “Focus, Grandma”—the opening film of the 26th edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. “In front of the theater, there is this red carpet and nothing else,” Žalica told Variety. “It was a real shock.”

Few would accuse the Sarajevo native of being easily rattled. Born and raised in the Bosnian capital, Žalica lived there throughout the devastating four-year siege that laid waste to Sarajevo, amid the wider conflict that led to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

That turbulent period serves as the backdrop to “Focus, Grandma,” which follows a group of family members summoned to Sarajevo to stand vigil by their matriarch’s death bed. As the old woman takes her last breaths—miraculously outliving the doctor’s dire prognosis
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