djeca – children of sarajevo

Rahima works in glamorous restaurant in Sarajevo. The work is demanding and when she arrives home from work she has to care for her adolescent fourteen-year-old brother Nedim. He spends most of his time in front of the computer and rarely attends school. These two siblings live alone, having lost their parents during the Bosnian War. When Nedim is picked on by a newly-rich minister's son, he resolves to fight back. As a consequence Rahima is obliged to make good the damage; a broken iPhone, which would account for three months of the twenty-three-year old's earnings.

With her second feature film the director creates anything other than a flattering image of life in Sarajevo. The consequences of war are conspicuous as society threatens to fragment into winners and losers. Rahima is a Muslim and wears a headscarf; her brother claims that he's picked upon at school for this reason. Rahima fights however; against the the minister, against the welfare worker and for her brother, who stands on the edge of criminality. Ultimately the siblings have at least grown closer; a glimmer of hope on Christmas Day.

In an almost documentary-like fashion the director works with the images generated by an omnipresent hand-held camera, operated by her husband Erol Zubčević. The film observes, carefully lays a finger on wounds of past and present. In the process a number of broad hints are given and it is left to the viewer to fill in the gaps of this concise tale.