Directed by Mira Turajilic
Serbia | 2018 | Documentary | 100 min | Serbian w/English subtitles
Film Source: Icarus
Awards / premier festivals: Grand Prize at IDFA
Sponsor: Jane Pincus
A Belgrade apartment divided in two with a locked door that has remained unopened for 60 years is the MacGuffin device that propels and underpins this multi-layered documentary. This is a film where the historical, political and personal all mesh seamlessly. It tells the story of a family, and at the same time serves as a symbol of a country in political turmoil. The property in question was split on the orders of the then-communist government when the filmmaker’s mother, Srbijanka Turajlic, who was born there, was just 2 years old. Her daughter, Mila Turajlic, the film’s director, lets her mother, a prominent political activist who played a leading role in the revolution, take center place in the film, as she did in her activist life. The Other Side of Everything is a complex and tender generational film that feels very current today. ~ OY