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Docu Press Corner: Personal Stories as a Mirror of Society
Three documentary films addressing important political and social themes through personal stories were presented at the Docu Press Corner. Directors and producers from Moldova, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina shared their experiences and challenges during the filmmaking process with the audience.
The guests of today’s Docu Press Corner, held at Festival Square, were directors Raisa Razmerita and Metod Pevec, and director Dragana Jurišić. In conversation with Rada Šešić, the selector of the Competition Programme – Documentary Film, they discussed their achievements ELECTING MS SANTA, WHEN I GET OUT, and THE BALKAN COWBOY. The Docu Press Corner programme featured three documentaries that explore, through personal stories, the political and social communities of which we are all a part.
The film ELECTING MS SANTA follows a woman from a small Moldovan village who decides to run for mayor, challenging the patriarchal community she belongs to. The film was developed over several years, and the filmmakers also participated in the Sarajevo Film Festival’s Industry Programme in 2019. Speaking about her close approach to the family at the center of the film, director Raisa Razmerita noted that coming from the same village helped her greatly. “At first, it was obvious that they behaved quite differently in front of the camera, so I decided to reduce the crew to just myself and my husband, who is also the film’s producer,” Razmerita said.
Ion Gnatiuc, the film’s producer, added that being both colleagues and life partners did not always make the process easier. “It didn’t help that we are both colleagues and a couple, because the creative process often continued at home,” he said. The filmmakers explained that making the film was a continuous learning process, particularly for Raisa, who previously worked as a journalist. “We didn’t know how to write a documentary film. Razmerita is a journalist, and it took her a long time to understand how to turn facts into visual metaphors,” Gnatiuc said. The couple also highlighted their collaboration with a Moldovan NGO that works to empower women and encourage their greater social and political engagement.
Slovenian director Metod Pevec, who mostly works on fiction films, presented his new documentary WHEN I GET OUT, which was filmed over a year and a half in Dob, Slovenia’s largest prison. “Lately, I prefer working on documentaries because the process is completely unpredictable. It gives me a sense of freedom,” Pevec said. The director regularly visited the prison accompanied by a psychiatrist, exploring the meaning of a “criminal identity.” “When you spend so much time with someone, you forget that you are even filming.
What was happening between people became more important than the footage itself, though, paradoxically, it turned out to be useful for the film,” Pevec said. The prisoners also went through an audition before filming, and the director was surprised by their willingness to participate. “I was surprised by how many of them actually wanted to do it. It felt like they could hardly wait to share their stories.” As Pevec explained, the film took its final shape only in the editing room. The prisoners were paid for their engagement on the film, and they also had the opportunity to choose whether they wanted certain recorded material to be part of the final cut.
Also presented was THE BALKAN COWBOY, a film about Harry Jackson, a director of Western films who worked in Bijeljina. “The film did start as my desire to solve the mystery of the stories and rumors surrounding this fascinating figure, who was also a friend of my father’s, but it ended up as a story about a city too,” said director Jurišić. Alongside American and spaghetti Westerns, the film explores the phenomenon of the so-called “burek Western,” which, according to the Irish producer, is one of the elements that could make the story accessible to audiences outside the Balkans.
Speaking about her hometown, Jurišić highlighted how much Bijeljina has changed since the war. “Bijeljina has almost exploded. Most of the refugees moved there, which affected almost everything. The city today is almost unrecognizable.” The story of Jackson, she added, was not widely known, which is why she was particularly glad to have the opportunity to share it with the audience. “The day before the casting, I was convinced that no one would show up, but more than 200 people came. That gave me hope,” Jurišić said.