Professor Sali S. Sallini, PhD is a university professor, film and theatre director, and the founder and director of the Balkan Panorama Film Festival. Born in 1972 in the village of Gorna Banjica, near Gostivar, North Macedonia, he completed his primary and secondary education in Prijepolje, Serbia and earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at the Faculty of Fine Arts and affiliated institutes of Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Türkiye.
From 1999 to 2022, he worked at the same faculty, in the Department of Film and Television, within the Film Directing Department. Since 2023, he has been affiliated with Trakya University in Edirne, where he has been involved in the establishment of the Department of Film and Television.
His academic research focuses on the relationships between film, the body, culture and society. His research has been published in peer-reviewed national and international academic journals. Alongside his academic career, he has served as an editor, a member of editorial boards, and a jury member at numerous academic and artistic events. His work in film and the arts extends beyond theoretical research and is firmly rooted in artistic practice.
Sallini’s filmography includes feature-length documentary and fiction films that explore the cultural and historical layers of the Balkans through a distinctive authorial approach. His films, including Sevdalinka: The Alchemy of Soul, Tamburica: The Sound of a Landscape and Rock the Trumpet (A Movie Which Doesn’t Want to Be a Documentary), have been screened at numerous international film festivals, attracting attention for their exploration of cultural memory, identity and the musical heritage of the Balkans. His more recent film, Stop the Danube River and Old Clock, has likewise been screened at festivals across Europe and internationally.
In 2015, he founded the Balkan Panorama Film Festival with the aim of establishing a cultural bridge between Türkiye and the Balkans through cinema. As the festival’s founder and director, he has initiated and realised numerous international collaborations, panels, workshops and special programmes. He has also served on international festival juries in various countries and has actively participated in international film events.
With extensive multilingual and multicultural experience, Sallini combines academic research with artistic practice, establishing a distinctive and authentic position within Balkan cinema and cultural studies. His work brings together film directing, academic research and international cultural cooperation, with a particular focus on the Balkans as a space where different cultures, identities and historical experiences intersect.
He is currently working on a feature-length documentary about rock music, popular culture and young people in the former Yugoslavia, under the working title Marshall Is Dead, or How Rock and Roll Killed Yugoslavia.
