FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR

Prof. Dr. Sali S. Sallini is an academic, film and theatre director, and the founder and director of the Balkan Panorama Film Festival. He was born in 1972 in the village of Yukarı Banisa, in Gostivar, North Macedonia. Sallini completed his undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral studies at Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts and its affiliated institutes. Between 1999 and 2022, he served in the Department of Cinema and Television, within the Film Directing Division at Dokuz Eylül University. In 2023, he began his academic career at Trakya University.

His academic work focuses on the relationship between cinema, the body, culture, and society, and has been published in national and international peer-reviewed journals. He has also served as an editor, editorial board member, and jury member. His contributions to cinema and the arts extend beyond theory, finding a strong counterpart in practice.

Sallini’s filmography consists of feature-length documentary and fiction projects that explore the cultural and historical layers of the Balkan region through a cinematic language. His films such as Sevdalinka: The Alchemy of the Soul, Tamburica: The Sound of the Landscape, and Rock the Trumpet have been screened at international festivals, drawing particular attention for their narratives centered on cultural memory, identity, and music in the Balkans. His recent work, Stop the Danube and the Old Clocks, has also met audiences at European and international festivals.

With the Balkan Panorama Film Festival, which he founded in 2015, Sallini aims to build a cultural bridge between Turkey and the Balkans through cinema. Within the framework of the festival, he has led numerous international collaborations, panels, workshops, and special programs. He has served as a jury member in various countries and has been actively involved in international film festivals.

With a multilingual and multicultural background, Sallini has established a distinctive position in the field of Balkan cinema and cultural studies by combining academic production with artistic practice. He continues to uphold, with strong dedication, the responsibility of serving as a cultural bridge between Turkey and the Balkans in the fields of culture, arts, and education.