Grbavica (film)
Encyclopedia
Grbavica is a 2006 film by Jasmila Žbanić
about the life of a single mother in contemporary Sarajevo
in the aftermath of systematic rapes of Bosniak
women by Serbia
n troops during the war. It was released in the United Kingdom
as Esma's Secret: Grbavica, and in USA as Grbavica: Land of My Dreams.
The film shows, through the eyes of the main character Esma, her teenage daughter Sara, and others, how everyday life is still being shaped by the Yugoslav wars
of the 1990s. The title refers to a neighbourhood of Sarajevo
Esma lives in. The film was an international co-production
between companies from Bosnia
, Austria
, Croatia
and Germany
; it received funding from the German television companies ZDF
and Arte
. Grbavica received an enthusiastic response from critics, earning a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a website that aggregates professional critiques.
It won the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival and it was Bosnia & Herzegovina
's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Academy Awards
.
In the film, the Serb perpetrators of sex acts are referred to as Chetniks, a derogatory
term which some of the population of Sarajevo (mostly Bosnian Muslims and Croats) used for the besieging Serb troops. The director claims that she avoided the word Serb on purpose, in order to avoid imposing collective guilt on an entire ethnic group.
Sara makes friends with Samir, who, like Sara, has no father. Both of their fathers allegedly died as war heroes. Samir is surprised that Sara doesn’t know the circumstances of her father’s death. Samir’s own father was massacred by Chetniks near Žuč when he refused to leave the trench he was defending. And yet, whenever mother and daughter discuss this delicate topic, Esma’s responses are always vague.
The situation becomes more complicated when the school offers to take pupils on the trip free of charge, provided they can furnish a certificate proving that they are the offspring of a war hero. Esma explains to Sara that her father’s corpse was never found and that she does not possess such a certificate. She promises to try to obtain the document. In reality she attempts to borrow the money Sara needs – from her friend, Sabina, from her aunt and from her boss.
Sara can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that something’s not right. Shocked and bewildered when she discovers she is not mentioned as the child of a war hero on the list of pupils on the school trip, she lashes out at a classmate, explaining that her father was massacred on the front near Žuč when he refused to desert his trench. At home, however, she confronts her mother, demanding to know the truth. Esma breaks down and brutally reveals the painful facts: Esma was raped in a prisoner camp and forced to have the child that resulted from this violation. All at once, Sara realises that she is the child of a Chetnik. And yet, the knowledge also brings them a step closer to overcoming the trauma. In the end Sara leaves for a school trip, waving to Esma at the last moment. In the bus children are singing a popular song about Sarajevo ("Land of My Dreams"), and in the end Sara joins as well, and thus ends the film on a bright and optimistic note.
and Sheffield
on December 15, 2006.
While it has been screened in Sarajevo, it is unlikely that the film will be shown in cinemas in the Republika Srpska
entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the major film distributor "doubts its commercial viability". It has, however, been shown in Serbia
itself.
Nominations
Jasmila Žbanic
Jasmila Žbanić is a film director from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, department for theater and film directing. She also worked as a puppeteer in the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater and as a clown in a Lee De Long workshop. She is noted for the...
about the life of a single mother in contemporary Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
in the aftermath of systematic rapes of Bosniak
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
women by Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n troops during the war. It was released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as Esma's Secret: Grbavica, and in USA as Grbavica: Land of My Dreams.
The film shows, through the eyes of the main character Esma, her teenage daughter Sara, and others, how everyday life is still being shaped by the Yugoslav wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
of the 1990s. The title refers to a neighbourhood of Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
Esma lives in. The film was an international co-production
International co-production
An international co-production is a production where two or more different production companies are working together, for example in a film production...
between companies from Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
; it received funding from the German television companies ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
and Arte
Arte
Arte is a Franco-German TV network. It is a European culture channel and aims to promote quality programming especially in areas of culture and the arts...
. Grbavica received an enthusiastic response from critics, earning a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a website that aggregates professional critiques.
It won the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival and it was Bosnia & Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Academy Awards
79th Academy Awards
The 79th Academy Awards ceremony , honored the best films of 2006 and took place on February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on ABC. Ellen DeGeneres hosted the ceremony for the first time. The producer was Laura Ziskin. The announcers were Don LaFontaine and Gina Tuttle.The nominees were...
.
Background
According to the director,- "...in 1992 everything changed and I realized that I was living in a war in which sex was used as part of a war strategy to humiliate women and thereby cause the destruction of an ethnic group! 20,000 women were systematically raped in Bosnia during the war." http://www.coop99.at/grbavica_website/
In the film, the Serb perpetrators of sex acts are referred to as Chetniks, a derogatory
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
term which some of the population of Sarajevo (mostly Bosnian Muslims and Croats) used for the besieging Serb troops. The director claims that she avoided the word Serb on purpose, in order to avoid imposing collective guilt on an entire ethnic group.
Plot
Single mother Esma lives with her 12-year-old daughter, Sara, in post-war Sarajevo. Sara wants to go on a school trip and Esma starts working as a waitress in a nightclub in order to earn the money.Sara makes friends with Samir, who, like Sara, has no father. Both of their fathers allegedly died as war heroes. Samir is surprised that Sara doesn’t know the circumstances of her father’s death. Samir’s own father was massacred by Chetniks near Žuč when he refused to leave the trench he was defending. And yet, whenever mother and daughter discuss this delicate topic, Esma’s responses are always vague.
The situation becomes more complicated when the school offers to take pupils on the trip free of charge, provided they can furnish a certificate proving that they are the offspring of a war hero. Esma explains to Sara that her father’s corpse was never found and that she does not possess such a certificate. She promises to try to obtain the document. In reality she attempts to borrow the money Sara needs – from her friend, Sabina, from her aunt and from her boss.
Sara can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that something’s not right. Shocked and bewildered when she discovers she is not mentioned as the child of a war hero on the list of pupils on the school trip, she lashes out at a classmate, explaining that her father was massacred on the front near Žuč when he refused to desert his trench. At home, however, she confronts her mother, demanding to know the truth. Esma breaks down and brutally reveals the painful facts: Esma was raped in a prisoner camp and forced to have the child that resulted from this violation. All at once, Sara realises that she is the child of a Chetnik. And yet, the knowledge also brings them a step closer to overcoming the trauma. In the end Sara leaves for a school trip, waving to Esma at the last moment. In the bus children are singing a popular song about Sarajevo ("Land of My Dreams"), and in the end Sara joins as well, and thus ends the film on a bright and optimistic note.
Cast
- Mirjana KaranovićMirjana KaranovicMirjana Karanović is a Serbian actress known for many important roles in former Yugoslav films during the past quarter of a century....
as Esma Halilovic - Luna Mijović as Sara
- Leon LučevLeon LučevLeon Lučev is a Croatian actor.Lučev had his feature film debut in Vinko Brešan's 1996 comedy How the War Started on My Island...
as Pelda - Kenan Čatić as Samir
- Jasna Ornela Berry as Sabina
- Dejan AčimovićDejan AcimovicDejan Aćimović is an actor and director in Croatia. He was born in Čapljina, Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and Herzegovina. As an actor, his work included principal and supporting roles in numerous films, both within and outside Croatia...
as Čenga - Bogdan DiklićBogdan DiklicBogdan Diklić is a Serbian actor and star of over one hundred Yugoslavian movies and television series.He and Goran Marković made 10 movies....
as Šaran - Emir HadžihafizbegovićEmir HadžihafizbegovicEmir Hadžihafizbegović is a famous Bosnian actor.-Biography:Hadžihafizbegović got his diploma in acting at the Academy of Arts in Sarajevo in 1986. He received the Golden Arena for best actor at the Pula Film Festival and award for Best actor at the Durban International Film Festival...
as Puška - Ermin Bravo as Professor Muha
- Semka Sokolović-BertokSemka Sokolovic-BertokSemka Sokolović-Bertok was a famous Bosnian actress. She also was a competitive chess player in her youth, winning the Croatian Chess Championship eight times....
as Pelda's Mother - Maike Höhne as Jabolka
- Jasna Žalica as Plema
- Nada Džurevska as Aunt Safija
- Emina Muftić as Vasvija
- Dunja Pašić as Mila
Distribution
In the UK, the film opened in selected cinemas in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
on December 15, 2006.
While it has been screened in Sarajevo, it is unlikely that the film will be shown in cinemas in the Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the major film distributor "doubts its commercial viability". It has, however, been shown in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
itself.
Awards
Wins- Golden Bear - Best Film - Berlin Film Festival 2006
- Peace Film Award - Berlin Film Festival 2006
- Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Berlin Film Festival 2006
- KOSMORAMA award - Best Film
- Reykjavik Film Festival - Best Film
- AFI Film Festival - Narrative grand jury prize
- Brussels European Film Festival - Prize TV Canvas for Best Film and Award Best Actress (to Mirjana Karanović)
- Ourence Film Festival - Award Best Actress (to Mirjana Karanović)
- Portland International Film Festival - Audience Award
- Thessaloniki Film Festival - Woman & Equality Award
- Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film FestivalBosnian-Herzegovinian Film FestivalThe Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival is an annual event founded in 2003 and held in New York and since 2007 showcased at the Tribeca Cinemas Theatres. This Festival showcases the best of the Bosnian cinematography and also provides a platform for the international exposure for emerging Bosnian...
in New York - Audience Award
Nominations
- Hollywood World Awards - Best Film
- Sundance Film FestivalSundance Film FestivalThe Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
- Grand Jury Prize - European Film AwardsEuropean Film AcademyThe European Film Academy is an initiative of a group of European filmmakers who came together in Berlin on the occasion of the first presentation of the European Film Awards in November 1988.- European Film Academy :...
- Best Film and Best Actress
External links
- Official website
- Rotten Tomatoes
- Grbavica at Dogwoof pictures
- Bosnia's Lingering Shadow of War, Washington Post, April 13, 2007
- A scene from the film, at the YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.