This week, more precisely, on April 15th, the 52nd installment of the Visions du Réel Documentary Film Festival (VdR) will begin in Nyon, Switzerland; This year, as part of the festival’s program, 142 films from 58 countries will be screened, 82 of which will have their world premieres and 16 their international premieres at the festival. In the program unit Latitude, the notable film Landscapes of Resistance by Marta Popivoda, made with the support of Film CenterSerbia, will be screened. The festival will last until April 25 this year.
The film records a journey through the memories of the anti-fascist fighter Sonja (97), one of the first partisans in Serbia, who was also among the leaders of the resistance movement in Auschwitz. As Sonja talks, we travel through the landscapes of her revolutionary youth – the forests and mountains of Serbia and the muddy terrain of Auschwitz, recorded as they look today – as well as through her small apartment in downtown Belgrade, where she lives with her husband and cat. As a great narrator, Sonja is able to talk about events from the past without “remembering”, which directly transports us to the specific atmosphere and way of thinking that gave rise to the anti-fascist resistance in Yugoslavia. We let her story travel through time, towards the bodies of new generations, suggesting that it is always possible to think and resist.
The protagonists of the film are Sofia Sonja Vujanović (Stanišić), Ivo Vujanović and Ivanka Maksović. The script was written by Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović, the director of photography is Ivan Marković, the editor is Jelena Maksimović, the sound designer is Jakov Munižaba, while the sound mix was done by Simon Apostolou.
The producers are Marta Popivoda and Dragana Jovović for the Serbia production company Theory at Work, as well as Jasmina Sijerčić for Bocalupo Films from France. The film was produced with the support of Film Center Serbia, the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, Reconstruction Women’s Fund, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, ARTE France – La Lucarne and CNC – Center National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée.