Sundance Grand Jury Winner 'Shame and Money' Lands at Sarajevo
Visar Morina's drama Shame and Money has won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, and the film is now reaching audiences in the Balkans with its regional premiere at the Sarajevo Film Festival (Variety, 16 August 2026).
The film opened Sarajevo's Competition Programme — Narrative Feature Film section, where it also competed for festival honours (Sarajevo Film Festival). For Morina, the Sarajevo staging carries a particular resonance: his previous film, Exile, which also premiered at Sundance, went on to win the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2020 (Variety, 16 August 2026).
Shame and Money follows Shaban, played by Astrit Kabashi, and Hatixhe, played by Flonja Kodheli — a couple in their forties living with their extended family in rural Kosovo. When they lose their livelihood, the pair are forced to move to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, and rebuild from nothing. The cast also includes Kumrije Hoxa, Fiona Gllavica and Alban Ukaj (The Yellow Affair). Per the Sarajevo Film Festival, the film explores poverty, pride, and the struggle to keep one's dignity when the world keeps beating you down (Sarajevo Film Festival).
Morina was born in Kosovo and emigrated with his family to Germany in the 1990s. He co-wrote the screenplay with Doruntina Basha, an award-winning playwright from Kosovo (Variety, 16 August 2026; Variety, 21 January 2026). Morina's earlier directing credits include the film Babai (The Yellow Affair).
The production is a five-country co-production — Germany, Kosovo, Slovenia, Albania and North Macedonia — produced by Vicky Bane and Schuldenberg Films, with co-production partners Eagle Eye Films, Vertigo Ljubljana, On Film Production, List Production and Quetzalcoatl (Variety, 16 August 2026; Sundance Festival Player). World sales — the business of selling distribution rights territory by territory to buyers around the globe — are handled by The Yellow Affair and Espoo (Variety, 16 August 2026).
At 130 minutes, the film carries the weight of its subject without rushing it (Sundance Festival Player). What makes this stand out is the trajectory: a Kosovan-born film-maker whose work has now been recognised at both ends of the festival circuit that matters most to independent cinema in Europe and North America — Sundance, where the film launched, and Sarajevo, where the regional conversation happens.
