Mila Turajlic is a documentary filmmaker from Belgrade, Serbia, best known for her documentary Cinema Komunisto, which world premiered at IDFA and the Tribeca Film Festival, and went on to win 16 awards including the Gold Hugo at the Chicago Int’l Film Festival in 2011, and the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage. Theatrically released in France, UK, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, "Cinema Komunisto" was broadcast across Europe.

Mila has been awarded grants from the Serbian Film Center, CNC-Cinémas du monde (France), EURIMAGES, the Doha Film Institute (Qatar) and the Jan Vrijman Fund (Netherlands). She is an alumnus of Archidoc, Documentary Campus, IDFAcademy and EURODOC. Her projects were selected for the Berlinale Talents Doc Station (2016), Talents from the East at the Karlovy Vary FF, and the Rough Cut Boutique of the Sarajevo Film Festival (2014). 

Mila teaches workshops in self-producing at the Balkan Discoveries (by Balkan Documentary Center, Bulgaria) and on archive use in creative documentaries at Archidoc (by La Fémis, France). She has been a guest lecturer at UCL (London), Sorbonne (Paris), University of Michigan, Yale and Harvard.
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She received her Phd in cinema from the University of Westminster, and her MSc and BSc in political science from the London School of Economics. After obtaining a BA in Film and TV Production at the national film school in Belgrade, Mila specialised in documentary filmmaking at La Fémis in Paris and worked as production assistant and researcher on series for the Discovery Channel and ARTE France, as well as gaining experience on fiction films (“Apocalypto” dir. Mel Gibson, “Fade to Black” dir. Oliver Parker, “Brothers Bloom” dir. Rian Johnson). 
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Mila produces the Magnificent 7 Festival of European Feature Documentary Film in Belgrade since it’s creation in 2005, with the aim of creating an audience for cinematic auteur-driven documentary films in Serbia. She is a founding member of DOKSerbia, the Association of documentary filmmakers of Serbia, and served as the first President of the Board.

Mila's film The Other Side of Everything premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017, and has been selected for the prestigious Feature-Length Competition at IDFA. The film is co-produced by HBO Europe, Survivance (France) and ARTE-WDR.

AWARDS
for Cinema Komunisto
Gold Hugo for Best Documentary Chicago International Film Festival, USA
Alpe Adria Cinema Award for Best Documentary Film Trieste Film Festival, Italy
Grand Prix for Best Documentary Film Festival International du cinéma engagé, Algeria 
FOCAL International Award for Best Use of Archive Footage in an Arts Production 2011
FIPRESCI Serbia Best Documentary Film in 2011
Best Balkan Newcomer Dokufest, Prizren
Best Debutant Director Makedox, Macedonia
Best Editing Award Cinema City, Serbia
Audience Award Views of the World, Cyprus
Audience Award UnderhillFest, Montenegro
Audience Award Cinema City Festival, Serbia
Honourable Mention of the Jury It’s All True, Brazil
Honourable Mention of the Jury Uruguay International Film Festival, Uruguay 
Honorable Mention of the Jury Cape Winelands Film Festival, South Africa
Honourable Mention of the Jury UnderhillFest, Montenegro
Special Jury Award Balkan Film Festival in Podgradec, Albania