Dir: Jelena Maksimović | Drama 2026
Jelena Maksimović’s debut fiction feature is an impressively scruffy piece of political cinema, though its ambitions occasionally outrun its execution. Set against Serbia’s student protests, Until the Day Ends follows Lena and Stefan, two young people drawn together as the country around them becomes increasingly polarised. Maksimović mixes romance, road movie, comedy and political drama, refusing to settle comfortably into any one genre.
The film’s visual language is deliberately raw. Handheld camerawork, crowded frames and a sometimes abrasive proximity to its characters give the opening sections a nervous, almost improvised quality, mirroring the volatility of the streets. There is a striking change of register once the protagonists retreat into the countryside: the camera relaxes, compositions become more spacious and the harshness of the urban world gives way to natural light, vegetation and an almost languid stillness. These passages are among the film’s strongest, allowing atmosphere and physical space to do what the dialogue sometimes struggles to achieve.
Maksimović has a good eye for the collision between private desire and public unrest, and there is an appealing refusal to turn her young protagonists into convenient political symbols. Yet the film can feel tonally overextended, its shifts between genres occasionally seeming more opportunistic than organic. Still, its rough surfaces and restless energy are part of its appeal. Until the Day Ends may not entirely control its contradictions, but its unruliness feels genuine — a debut made in the heat of a moment rather than retrospectively smoothing it into coherence
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2026