Section: Spectrum

Murina

Murina

Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović
HR/BR/US/SL, 2021, 92 Min

Tensions arise between restless teenager Julija and her oppressive father Ante when an old family friend shows up at their Croatian island home. As Ante tries to negotiate a life-changing deal, Julija desires more from the influential visitor who provides a taste of liberation over a weekend full of allusions to desire and violence. Earlier this year MURINA was the recipient of the MIOB New Vision Award from the European film festival network "Moving Images, Open Borders".

In Murina I wanted to explore the tensions of a family invaded by a foreigner, an outsider who propels a girl’s inner power to confront the limitations of the mentality she’s known her whole life … Chauvinism is so deeply rooted in our society that we often mistake it for our cultural mentality. The father implements it because it suits him, the mother supports it because she is raised to do so. For Julija, chauvinism is an antagonistic force so present as a response to her every action that she mistakes its boundaries for her own potential … Julija lives in a physical paradise on a Croatian island, but in a society obsessed with getting rich quick by selling away its own essence, where a daughter’s strength is mistaken for her father’s weakness, and land’s value is mistaken for profit. Julija has an intuition for these dynamics … She is like the murina, the moray eel, an animal that will bite its own flesh to break free from a fisherman. Her power is her faith in herself, in nature, and in the unknown. Her power is that she refuses to be silenced.

This film text is taken from the catalog of the Trieste Film Festival 2022.

Weltspiegel Saal 2: original version with English subtitles.

Glad-House: original version with English subtitles + German simultaneous translation

 

Drehbuch
Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, Frank Graziano
Kamera
Hélène Louvart (afc) Underwater cinematographer: Zoran Mikinčić-Budin
Ton
Julij Zornik
Schnitt
Vladimir Gojun
Ausstattung
Ivan Veljača
Musik
Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine
Darsteller
Gracija Filipović - Julija
Danica Čurčić - Nela
Leon Lučev - Ante
Cliff Curtis - Javier
Produzent
Danijel Pek, Rodrigo Teixeira
Produktion
Antitalent, RT Features
Co-Produktion
Spiritus Movens, SPOK Films, Staragara
Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović - dir="ltr">Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic is a writer-director born in Dubrovnik and currently based in New York.

Her short Into the Blue, was nominated for a Student Academy Award, and won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival, Oberhausen Film Festival, and the Festival de Premier Plans, Angers, among many others.

Antoneta’s first feature film Murina developed with support from the Résidence du Festival Cannes, Cinéfondation, First Films First by the Ghoethe-Institute, and Jerusalem Film Lab is produced by Martin Scorsese Sikelia, RT features and Antitalent.

Antoneta holds an MA from Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and an MFA in screenwriting and directing from Columbia University in New York. Antoneta is an alumna of the Berlinale Talent Lab, Sarajevo Talent Lab, La Femis Producing Atelier, and the Marcie Bloom Fellowship and is a member of the Academy.

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