SERBIA
2024 – DCP – color – 96’

Direction: Mirjana Karanovic

Screenplay: Mirjana Karanovic, Maja Pelevic, Ognjen Svilicic

Cinematography: Igor Marovic

Editing: Lazar Predojev

Set design: Dragana Bacovic

Music: Ephrem Luchinger

Costumes: Laura Locher

Cast: Mirjana Karanovic (Mara), Vucic Perovic (Milan), Boris Isakovic (Boris), Jasna Zalica (Vesna), Alen Liveric (Voja), Pavle Cemerikic (Nemanja), Jelena Curuvija (Una)

Producers: Snezana van Houwelingen

Production: This and That Productions in coproduzione con in coproduction with Okofilm Productions (Ch), Paul Thiltges Distributions (Lu), December (Si), Deblokada (Bih), VHS doo (Mne)

World Sales: Antipode Sales International

Synopsis

Mara, a successful businesswoman and single mother, suddenly loses her son Nemanja to an untimely death. She clamps up and refuses to show emotions being repulsive and unavailable for any communication on the subject with her friends and family. With buried trauma deep inside of her, she meets Milan, Nemanja’s friend. Milan is someone she intends to use to find out about her son’s life. Emotions they both share toward Nemanja and his sudden death brings them together and initiate physical relationship.
Although she wants to keep him at a distance and keep their relationship purely physical, she starts to open up to him. Not knowing what shewants she realizes she enjoys his company…

The director: MIRJANA KARANOVIC

Serbian actress known for many acclaimed roles in the films of the former Yugoslavia, she made her debut in Srdjan Karanovic’s film Petrijin Venac (1980). She gained world fame with the role of “Mother” in Emir Kusturica’s When Father Was Away on Business. For the role of “Esma” in the film Grbavica: The Land Of My Dreams by Jasmila Zbanic (Golden Bear at the Berlinale) she won numerous awards at festivals and a nomination from the European Film Academy in 2006. Then she appears in Andrea Staka’s Das Fraulein and in Darko Lungulov’s Here and There. Mirjana made her debut as the director with A Good Wife (2016) premiered at the Sundance. The film has been screened at over 40 festivals around the world and she won numerous awards.

Director’s statement

“I want to show the contrast I carry within as if two completely different persons live inside my body. I often feel shame and fear to talk about it. A woman of my age shouldn’t be talking so openly about her passions and desires, which is reserved for younger people. When a woman in this stage of life tries to break out of a traditional role, the media and public call her an old hag and a witch. This is why I want to make this film and tell this story. I want to provoke the public and encourage other women and all other people that feel underrepresented and feel like they are serving roles in life that their inner spirit is trying to fight against.
I expect a strong reaction and I am looking forward to it. I see this film as a story about strength, but not in order to cope, but to make a change and move on. This title should open hidden spaces in the female being, which shock with honesty and do not romanticize emotions. I want to talk about the suppressed passion for life, for Eros that gives energy and that has been constrained and controlled by social rules for centuries in the female being. I want to make a film about courage and acceptance.”

Filmography

2016 Dobra Zena (A Good Wife)
2024 Majka Mara (Mother Mara)

Festival

2024 Sarajevo IFF –  Gala Screening, Out of Competition
2024 Zurich Film Festival – Competition
2024 Sao Paulo IFF –  New Directors Competition

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