Posts Tagged ‘Serbian Film’

Sorella di Clausura (2025)

Dir: Ivana Mladenovic | Cast: Katia Pascariu, Cendana Trifan, Miodrag Mladenovic | Romania, Serbia, Italy, Spain – 2025 – 103′ – Romanian, Serbian, English

Weird and wacky humour is the draw in this droll but tragic social and political satire that lampoons hero worship and the cult of celebrity in small town Romania.

Sorella di Clausura, literally meaning “Cloistered Sister” is a sophomore feature for the Serbian-born Ivana Mladenović who rose to the international stage with her startling debut Ivana the Terrible

Here against the backdrop of Romania’s economic peeks and troughs she charts the often tawdry experiences of another ‘heroine’, the hapless Stela Popovic, 36, a well-educated but nevertheless daft woman whose inability to hold down a job sees her fall on hard times.

Romantically-speaking Stela fares no better: her focus in life is an obsession with an ageing Serbian singer from the former Yugoslavia called Boban whom she has never met but who styles himself “the God of poor people and Romas” on account of his musical output.

Stela’s salvation beckons in the shape of Vera, a minor star who claims to be one of Boban’s lovers. Vera not only offers Stela the chance to meet her hero, but also to earn an income stream from her business selling dildos and lubricants thus saving her from the breadline.

But neither lifelines transpire: this is sadly no ‘rags to riches story’. When Vera’s company goes bust Stela finds herself reduced to working as a cleaner in Vera’s house in the middle of nowhere.

One saving grace for Stela is finding a publisher willing to send the money to bring her manuscript to Bucharest. An offbeat relationship develops with this odd man whose favourite author is Henry Millar and who says things like ‘Sex is for showing off. Wanking is for pleasure’. Naturally due to Stela’s low emotional intelligence and sheer desperation the two end up in bed this far from the answer to Stela’s prayers

There are some good ideas in this rather rambling feature and some strong performances particularly from Katia Pascariu in the lead role as a decent soul who can’t seem to do right for doing wrong.  @MeredithTaylor

WORLD PREMIERE AT LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2025

The Load | Teret (2018) *** Marrakech Film Festival 2018 | Winner Best Director

Writer/Dir. Ognjen Glavonić |  Drama | 98’

Ognjen Glavonić won various awards for Depth Two, a documentary about the grim discovery of war graves in his native Serbia. THE LOAD is his debut drama that fought its way out of the country inspired by the region’s 1999 NATO onslaught to tell another story from this harrowing period of Balkan history, a quietly devastating one that haunts with its slow burning revelation looming tragically out of the dreary landscape of longterm war.

This is a place full of dour-faced officials going through the motions in a country were hope has been washed away with the winter rain and bombs still cascade in the distance like incendiary stars. A few roadside blossoms tell us spring has arrived and tired-looking truck driver Vlada (Leon Lucev) is making his daily grind towards Belgrade from Kosovo with a load locked in his beaten-up lorry, the contents unknown. His instructions are clear : no stopping or diversions, he must keep a low profile until he reaches his destination.

On his way the journey starts uneventfully but at a crossing a smouldering car crash has blocked the the route to the capital. And a rather blasé teenager hitchhiker Pava (Pavle Čemerikić) offers to show him the way to his destination, tempting Vlada to bend the rules. As it happens Pava is clueless about map-reading, but doesn’t really mind that he has let Vlada down. Clearly, he represents the younger generation, shielded from the coldface of war from protective parents like Vlada, who, inured to disappointment and setbacks, motors on resigned, his face etched with the gruelling inevitability of his lot and eventually the pair start to bond.

The tone is brooding, morose and vaguely doom-laden as the men push on framed in close-up and on the widescreen by Tatjana Krstevski whose superb washed out visual also featured in Depth Two).  The two men drive on until Paja blithely announces his departure to hitchike to German and look for better things. But nature of his Vlada’s business requires him to be responsible and slowly the gruesome truth dawns making the inevitable realisation all the more haunting. MT

WINNER BEST DIRECTOR | MARRAKECH FILM FESTIVAL 2018 

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