78 DANA
78 DAYS
The eldest of the three sisters uses her hand-held camera to record everyday family life in their rural home: conversations with her younger sisters, birthday parties and the evening spent together watching TV when the newsreader reports on enemy missile attacks. The subsequent recordings - intended as a document of the time for their absent father - are different. They are more summery and yet the atmosphere is broken. Picking cherries in the garden, haircuts in the dim light of the bathroom and walks repeatedly overshadowed by air raid sirens and interrupted by dull explosions. Mladen, who suddenly appears with his little sister, stirs up family life and the relationship between the two eldest sisters. And yet he camera in the sisters' hands evolves into an element that connects them. Zooms and pans in search of a hint of normality and stability, camera shakes and flickering at the edge of the frame as an expression of fragility; of both internal and external conditions. The only stable constant is the date display, which documents the recording and the 78 days of shelling. With the spontaneity and authenticity of the camerawork, acting and set design, director and screenwriter Emilija Gašić creates here a family drama that comes across like a historical document, one which contains private, rarely told stories. Composed of over 200 anonymous accounts of the time of the NATO bombing which, under the name 'Operation Allied Force', was aimed at putting an end to Serbia's aggressive military actions in Kosovo.
Text: Merlin Webers
05.11.2024 | 17:30 | Glad-House (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
08.11.2024 | 13:30 | Glad-House (original version with English subtitles + simultaneous translation into German)
Emilija Gašić
Inés Gowland
Dora Filipović
Maja Đuričić
Viktorija Vasiljević, Milica Gicić, Tamara Gajović, Pavle Čemerikić, Maša Ćirović, Jelena Djokić, Goran Bogdan
Emilija Gašić - Award-winning Serbian filmmaker Emilija Gašić was born in 1991 in Yugoslavia and currently resides in New York City. She graduated with an MFA in Cinematography from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Emilija grew up in a small town against a background of news reports on war, a dying country and the sense ofuncertainty which deeply affected her sensibility in arts and formed her observant style in creating tension and atmosphere in her films. Her films have had successful festival runs and have screened at renowned festivals such as Columbus International Film & Animation Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Oscar qualifying Izmir Kisa Film Festival and many others. Emilija developed her first feature film screenplay 78 Days at Venice Biennale College of Cinema 2020. She co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film Mileva alongside Nicola Lanthier-Rogers. The film was awarded with the Production Honorable Mention Award by the Sloan Foundation in 2021. She alsoco-founded Istok Films together with Alex Wiske. As a cinematographer, she shot films in the USA, France, Norway and Czech Republic. Emilija is aNikon Storytellers Award recipient and a finalist for the Volker Bahnemann for Outstanding Cinematography. Her most recent cinematography work Stay Here If You Want(directed by Sarah Rosen) premiered at Davey Fest 2022 and Lost Beyond Stars (directedby Kayla Arend) is showing at LA Shorts, St. Louis International Film Fest, CineQuest and many others.
