Lars Rudolph: “Resisting means to focus on the beauty of humans, nature, culture”

 

Based on László Krasznahorkai’s multilayered novel The Melancholy of Resistance, the iconic film Werckmeister Harmonies by the prematurely lost Béla Tarr is being re-released in Greek cinemas.

On this occasion, we speak with its male lead, the acclaimed German stage and film actor Lars Rudolph.

A relatively inexperienced film actor back then, you were chosen as the male lead in Béla Tarr’s masterful Werckmeister Harmonies. To this day, this role has probably been your most accomplished and definitely most memorable.

First of all, who János Valuska actually was?

Thank you for your interesting questions.

On the one hand, János Valuska is a man delivering mail and newspapers in a small town.

On the other, as you delve into László Krasznahorkai’s beautiful novel, he becomes a sort of an angel.

I don’t know if he even understands humanity, but he nevertheless is a very innocent, young, good person.

He’s in conversation with the music professor György Eszter -played by the late Peter Fitz- about the German organist, music theorist, and composer of the Baroque era Andreas Werckmeister and the chromatic system that he had invented.

He’s also a very passive human being, not actively engaged in politics.

To what extent has incarnating him shaped your outlook on acting?

After Werckmeister Harmonies was finished, I had the chance to travel to festivals and to participate in castings, even for Hollywood films. I was still a very young, inexperienced actor, though.

I had nevertheless worked with other directors in theatre, such as Frank Castorf. I had also received the prize for the Best Young Actor in Germany for my debut film, Jan Ralske’s Not A Love Song.

I learned a lot about acting step by step, through workshops with American film coaches. Later on, I also played in theatre in Berlin and in Zurich under the direction of Christoph Marthaler.

So, little by little I somehow became an actor.

How would you describe Tarr as a director on set as well as outside it?

I’d like to tell you how I initially met Béla.

He was teaching in the Film School in Berlin. I was a young actor at the time, working with many colleagues in the School.

During the shooting for a scene in a film, there was in the script a brutal fight between the character played by me and the one impersonated by a woman actress.

By accident, I hit her very hard and broke the membrane of her left ear. She had to go to the doctor. All of the other students blamed me for this. I was very sorry.

Béla was in the audience and he was the only person who told me that it wasn’t my fault and that she was in part responsible because she was very stiff as an actress. “If you are a good actor, you can play with an accident,” he explained me.

He was in fact watching me the whole time during the shooting. I could tell from the way he was watching that he wanted me to play in this student film.

Maybe two years later, he called me and told me: “Lars, I have a script for you. The day I found you was when I knew that I could a write a film with Krasznahorkai. You are Valuska,” he concluded.  

When we started filming, I didn’t know anything about Béla and his films.

The shooting of Werckmeister Harmonies actually commenced on a cold winter day in Budapest with the hospital scene, where the mob beats up the elderly patients in a psychiatry ward.

According to Béla, there weren’t enough film rolls for the shooting. “Glue these rolls together!” I urged him. “Lars, don’t you know my movies?” he asked me. “No, I don’t,” I responded honestly. “We cannot go home!” But we went home. I was very angry.

Before resuming the shooting, I watched Sátántangó. Then, I understood his films.

It took us a few months to start over and the whole process lasted three years because of several issues: many camera people were drunk, one producer committed suicide. I think I flew to Budapest around forty times.

After my initial anger at Béla, we didn’t fight. He was a kind person and always nice to me and to the rest of the crew. He had a lot of patience. “Just walk, Lars, don’t do anything. Just be Valuska,” he was instructing me. I tried to, and made it.

Lars Rudolph

The film is based on László Krasznahorkai’s novel The Melancholy of Resistance, “a comedy of apocalypse, a book about a God that not only failed but didn’t even turn up for the exam,” according to James Wood.

How did you read the book at the time and to what extent has this reading evolved ever since?

I first read the novel during the preparation and loved it very much. After Béla died, I participated in some readings of the book with my music group in Berlin. The opening passage was incredible, as were the many colors the lead character has.

May the novel -as well as the film- be approached as a critique of authoritarianism and the pitfalls -even failure- of revolution?

I think it’s a critique on that. Béla, Krasznahorkai and Valuska believed in individual responsibility.

See how Valuska cared about the old men in the psychiatry ward or about his newspapers, was terrified by the aggression of the mob and ended up powerless and locked up in a mental institution.

Béla loved Thomas Bernhardt’s world and Valuska believed in the relationship with one’s family, friends, those you can talk to and also with the audience.

Béla also loved teaching, especially during the last fifteen years of his life. “Watch what’s there, watch the slow movement,” he used to teach his students. He launched the “Film Factory” program in Sarajevo in 2013.

His funeral was held in February in Budapest. Eight gravediggers shoveled the coffin into the Earth. Time didn’t exist for, maybe, ten minutes. You just heard the sound the Earth while receiving the coffin.

On the same night, we had a celebration only with his students. I wasn’t acquainted with all of them, but it was very beautiful to get to know them on that occasion.

From an existential, historic and political perspective, why may resistance be melancholic?

In Krasznahorkai’s novel there are all these weird, aggressive men following a secret order for destruction. Resisting to that, it’s just a melancholic and sad way of being and eventually becoming crazy.

As you read in the news, in Europe there’s still a right-wing, conservative and anti-foreign sentiment. You go crazy if you listen to the news all day long, especially in these times of psychotic politics.

Europe has, nevertheless, always been a mix of people who come and go, and change. That’s the interesting thing about people, art and ideas: they evolve and change.

Resisting means to focus on the beauty of humans, nature, birds, animals, culture.

At the moment I’m in the Alps with friends, walking all day until we are drained of our powers.

Hanna Schygulla, Lars Rudolph

To my mind, the whale is an unbearably sad -and probably infinitely wise- creature. What does it signify, according to you?

The whale contains a spirit that somehow changes the people, the town and the country. In one respect, this change is deadly and destructive, in another it signals the birth of new ideas.

The whale itself is a very peaceful animal, though, and symbolizes the beauty of a strange, unknown nature. So, a whale found in a town creates a more intense sensation compared to the one it would create if living by the seaside.

How do you define “arthouse cinema” in the era of AI both in European context, and on a global scale? Is controversial AI a tool of liberation -or experimentation, at least- or of submission?

There’s a lot of beauty in the movies, in the history of men and women. The art of storytelling is so incredible, almost as perfect as a beautiful flower.

I sometimes use AI to ask things. I know there’s a million of jobs going down the drain because of it.

The human race will probably die one day in the same way it was born. We will not live forever. As I’m getting old, I’m lucky that I will not witness the end happening.

You’re, nevertheless, turning 60 in August. Looking back on a modest career spanning more than 4 decades, what have you enjoyed the most, what has -perhaps- eluded you and what would you wish to explore more fully in the future?

Being a trumpet player and a musician myself, I do a lot of improvised music these days. I’ve also joined a theatrical group in Berlin which starts in September.

I’m still engaged in film and TV series, as well, when I like the role, the character that I’m offered. Luckily, I like the characters most of the time.

Heartfelt thanks to Lars Rudolph for his time and for granting me the permission to use his photograph.

Béla Tarr’s film Werckmeister Harmonies is being screened in Greek cinemas starting July 16, in a re-release by the newly established distribution company “Amarcord”.

Marta Popivoda: “The role of cinema is to imagine other possible, better worlds”

 

Marta Popivoda (Photo credit: Maja Medic)

Experimental in form, and deeply political, Landscapes of Resistance, the feature length documentary of Serbian director Marta Popivoda, is both a portrait of the late antifascist fighter Sonja and a reflection on the antifascism of today.

In conversation with the director ahead of the film’s screening within the context of the 23^rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (June 24-July 4, 2021).

Your latest documentary, Landscapes of Resistance, is an “unorthodox” work. I’ll start in an unorthodox manner, too. I would like you to tell me something more about the song that bookends it. Why did you choose this particular one?

The opening song is actually a very beautiful old song written by Yugoslav fighter for social justice Mihovil Pavlek Miškin. It dates from the period between the First and Second World War. It’s about inequality, oppression of the peasants and class society.

The version that is featured in the film is performed by the LeZbor, lesbian and feminist choir from Zagreb.

It is, therefore, very contemporary.

I thought it was important to have this version because it’s musically stronger, there is a queer, feminist and antifascist perspective in it, and because of Zagreb being part of former Yugoslavia, which is the context I refer to in my work.

It works in the same way the rest of your film does, trying to trace deeper connections between the past, the present and the future.

Your film has been in the making for quite a long time- has it been a decade or so?

Upon my first meeting with the late Sonja Vujanović, I immediately realized what a powerful and suggestive storyteller she was, and this triggered me in a way that I wanted to make a film with her.

Also, her story is exceptional and had some answers to the questions I was thinking about, like how you become a partisan.

Our first encounter took place more than a decade ago. Over the course of several years, Ana Vujanović, co-writer of the film, and I recorded interviews with Sonja.

Even back then, in 2007-2008, I knew that I wanted to make this film, but in some respects, I wasn’t feeling ready. Maybe I was too young. I thought that her figure and story required me to be a more powerful filmmaker.

Then, in 2016, I just woke up one morning and felt like I needed to finish the film. That now is the right time to tell this story. I felt that Sonja’s story needs to become “our” story in some ways.

Back then I also wrote the first script draft out of the transcripts of these interviews.

Alongside her granddaughter, Ana Vujanović.

Definitely. Ana and I are long term collaborators, and also partners in love and life.  We conducted the interviews with Sonja together and she was a dramaturg on the film.

Also, Ana wrote these diary inscriptions which are one of the layers in the film which reveal our personal perspective.

We share many socio-political concerns- and much more.

I was about to comment on that.

At some point we decided that it was important to inscribe our context, political and personal position, to show who is making this film.

That we are women, feminists, a queer couple from leftist-activist scene in Belgrade... and also indicate why this story is important for us today.

Still, this component of the film is very discreetly inserted into it in comparison to Sonja’s story and presence on the one hand, and of the landscapes, on the other.

First, there was Sonja’s story. Listening to her was like reading a film script, so I already had images in my mind, which we call “verbal images”.

I wanted to give space to these images, so my main directorial gesture was to place the mental images that she produces through her storytelling into the landscapes where events from these stories happened. 

Back then Ana was working on her concept of landscape dramaturgy, which comes more from the performing arts, and we discussed it a lot.

From these discussions emerged the question: “How can we populate/inhabit the landscape with different gazes or perspectives?”

I was thinking about this problem and how I can “solve” it cinematically. I conducted some visual experiments and came to the idea of constructing these hybrid landscapes by observing the same (s)place from different perspectives at the same time.

And then you can really travel through these landscapes, feel the layers of time and connect all this to the moment we are living in today. You have time for reflection. 

In terms of visual references, I would mention constructivist and cubist landscapes from the visual arts, as these movements were leftist art from Sonja’s time.

But to go back to your comment, the layer of the diary inscriptions came at the end, and we wanted to keep it discreet. We wanted to inscribe ourselves into the film but did not want to compare our experience with Sonja’s or take too much attention. 

Are all the places mentioned in the narration the ones where the actual events happened?

Most of them are the actual ones, otherwise they are topologically close. Even in Auschwitz, we went to the exact places she mentions. But, of course, sometimes it wasn’t easy to trace or access the exact location.

She was a very powerful and at the same time calm character. How has it been getting to know her and to what extent has she and have you changed through the course of this encounter?

When I first met her, she was still old, but very present and engaged in everything around her. We got to learn a lot from her stories, but also from her understanding of the present context back then.

Both Sonja and her husband Ivo were communist and antifascist fighters. He was also a dissident later. They were Marxists. They had this very clear Marxist political education and method of understanding the world around them.

For me, Marxism is a tool to understand society and power relations in it - and not just when you’re young and part of the movement as Sonja was, but also when you’re old.

What I definitely learned from them is that political education is essential if you want to be an actor in a society. It is crucial to understand what is happening to you, and to other people around you, and it gives you the possibility to resist.

Because new fascisms are coming in new forms, and we need to confront them today. What we learned from Sonja is that we don’t need to be heroes in order to become partisans, and there is no alternative today.

Sonja survived Auschwitz partly also because she knew why she was there -as a political prisoner. Of course, she was lucky to be able to self-organize, resist and survive, because many people didn’t have this chance.

This exchange between three of us also concerns what it means to be a feminist. Back then, in Yugoslavia before the Second World War, she was an activist for women's rights.

She fought for women’s right to vote, which women in Yugoslavia acquired quite early, in 1945, with the first socialist government.

She was going from village to village talking to women and discussing with them why it was important to have the right to vote. So, this feminist activist experience she had was also very important for Ana and me and brought us closer together.

I believe this film and the whole process was important to Sonja as well, as she wanted to hand us her story. She wanted the story of antifascist resistance to continue to exist and live, even when she is gone.

In the film, Sonja dies, but her story continues and “travels” to the bodies of the new generation of antifascists.

All is done in a very discreet, low-key manner. With such a person and story, one might have done something overly dramatic that would evoke strong emotions. One has the feeling that she describes something very ordinary.

In this film I’m definitely interested in the womanly side of war, and this of course is a reference to Svetlana Alexievich and her book The Unwomanly Face of War, where she interviewed female antifascist fighters.

We get to see how women remember things that were erased from history, and this is how people related to each other in these difficult times, how they self-organize, how they get politicized and became partisan/antifascist fighters.

It’s usually not part of a big, macro-historical narratives where we have heroes and drama. Our idea was to question the notion of Hero, which comes from a dominantly patriarchal ideology of history and war.

We wished to juxtapose self-organization, solidarity, and collectivism, and care with the idea of one and only true hero, which is almost always a man.

Sonja always mentioned her comrades, how she was part of a collective struggle, the dimension of solidarity and self-organization. She wouldn’t have survived if she had been just an individual.

So, we are dealing here with an anti-heroic narrative which also needs different cinematic form.

Since you’re very concerned about the fascism of today, what worries you the most about it? Or, where do you place your emphasis when you try to fight it through your lens- cultural, political or otherwise?

For me, the role of art or cinema is also to imagine or to remember other possible, better worlds.

To remember and retell Sonja’s story becomes especially relevant today when we live in the so-called neoliberal capitalism and radicalization of class society -that in the region of former Yugoslavia can be called “wild capitalism”- which deletes the public sector and the very idea of social justice.

Hand in hand with this comes the erasure of communism as a driving force of antifascism in Serbia and even wider, in Europe.

In our local context, we have revisionist political agendas and views of history in Serbia, as well as beyond, from the institutional level to everyday life.

They include the discourses of national reconciliation, thus also the absolution of fascists, the European resolution on totalitarianism, which lumps together fascism and communism, revisions of history textbooks used in schools, as well as the forceful separation of communism from anti-fascism.

In Serbia, for instance, we got two pieces of legislation that led straight to the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborationists. Also, in Serbia and elsewhere in the region, there is a high level of intolerance of LGBTIQ people.

Likewise in Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and elsewhere in Europe, we have racism targeting Roma people, as well as the fear of migrants from Syria and Africa.

Ana Vujanović said it perfectly in one of our interviews: “Those barbed-wire fences that have sprung up, aren’t they emblematic of undead fascism, raised from the grave by the erasure of the memory of anti-fascism?”

It’s important for me to evoke with this film the idea that resistance is always possible. That we almost always have a choice. And this is present in every part of Sonja’s story, even in such a totalitarian context like Auschwitz.

And in one that slowly, gradually and ominously evolves nowadays, also in countries like Greece or Serbia.

Influenced by capitalist ideology, which claims that it’s not an ideology, people cannot clearly recognize the enemy. In Sonja’s time it was the occupiers and the class enemy. Nowadays, however, there are different ways to occupy (a country).

What worries me the most is the normalization of the violent right-wing discourses in mainstream politics- in the USA with Trump, or elsewhere with neo-fascist groups entering the political scene of countries like Serbia, Greece or Sweden.

Still, your film is out, and I assume that it will continue to “travel” to festivals, both online and, when possible, in the normal, physical manner.

Definitely. This is better than nothing!

Directed by Marta Popivoda, the documentary Landscapes of Resistance is screened within the context of the Film Forward section of the 23^rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (June 24-July 4, 2021).

Massoud Bakhshi: “Media manipulate individuals everywhere”

 

Forgiveness, justice and the power of TV are being “dissected” in an austere manner in the second feature film by Iranian director Massoud Bakhshi, Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness.

Having won the award of best foreign language film at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, it is being screened at Greek cinemas since June 17. In conversation with the director.

Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness, your second feature film, primarily touches on the issues of forgiveness, justice and love through the “encounter” of two women of different class backgrounds, where the roles of the victim and the perpetrator alternate.

Is it through forgiveness that justice may indeed be attributed and societal cohesion maintained, to your mind? Or is the issue more complicated?

I think it is more complicated. Justice is a very relative concept, and it all depends from which side, which angle you look at the case.

But, as you noticed correctly, the main question here is forgiveness, which makes everything more complex and more interesting.

While everything is set up to achieve this forgiveness and give a lesson to the audience, you can see that it is not easy to renounce the vengeance.

Of course, to me, this is more a conceptual film than a social drama, even if I don’t mind that spectators or critics see it as a social drama.

Your film also highlights in an almost documentary way the infuriating influence that TV, and especially the so-called “reality shows”, may exert on people’s everyday life and -often- death.

What does the popularity of such shows reveal about the Iranian society?

Reality shows is a modern phenomenon just like the television itself, it is the result of the famous “ethical black hole” in modern aesthetics. Television and social media produce a new system of values in which everything appears more or less kitsch.  

And from America to Africa, from India to Saudi Arabia, these shows are produced and aired following some very similar formulas.

The film also portrays a society in which the gap between the poor and the rich is increasing. This is also universal: a rich minority takes everything and the majority of the world’s inhabitants struggles to have a minimum.

Media manipulate individuals everywhere, and even the good intentions don’t justify this kitsch system.

Sadaf Asgari

Yalda marks your second collaboration with experienced Iranian actress Behnaz Jafari and the first with Sadaf Asgari who impersonate the characters of Mona and Maryam, respectively. How has it been working with both of them?

I asked each one of them to find a role model for their characters in the real life.

Sadaf, the lead actress, comes from a very popular district of Tehran and had a hard life, she used to know these stories. I sent her to courts to attend the process of crime cases and to see how it goes.

For Behnaz, the actress impersonating Mona, it was a bit different She told me about one of her friends, an educated daughter who seriously opposed her rich father’s second marriage with a young wife.

They both incorporated elements of reality into their performances.

Moral dilemmas are often fictionally explored in Iranian films, to the point that one might describe Iranian cinema as a study on moral dilemmas. How do you interpret the recurring presence of such concerns?

I think it’s partly because Iranian society is struggling to form its own modernity and at the same time tends to keep traditional values. This struggle was intensified with 1979 revolution and 8 years of war -called “sacred defense”- against Iraq (1980-88).

In this struggle, crisis, contradictions and complexes are inevitable. They appear not only in different aspects of individuals’ life, but also, in larger scales, in the whole society.

Nowadays, in a materialistic world where neoliberalism reigns everywhere, a society like ours tries to differentiate itself, and moral dilemmas are not only personal issues.

Behnaz Jafari

On June 18 Iranians headed to the polls to elect a successor to the outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, considered to be a moderate reformist.

How would you describe the political climate at the moment in the country? Do you estimate that there may be any substantial change through the electoral process?

I am not probably the right person to answer this question as I don’t know about politics, simply because I don’t like it!

What I know is that my country is in a constant change, and having its very ancient history in mind, one can notice that this evolution has been fast and intense in the last century.

I think that the only thing that an artist can do in the same situation is to continue to create, and to keep the hope’s flame alive.

Regardless of the validity of the official data, Iran is among the countries that have been worst affected by the ongoing pandemic on a global level.

What about the prospects of Iranian film production in such unpredictable and unstable times?

Iranian filmmakers were active even under the pandemic. Many series are produced here, but also independent, low budget and marginal films.

The digital element has revolutionized everything in cinema, even if the distribution and lack of film theaters, besides the increasing costs of the production, are still big issues for this cinema.

Massoud Bakhshi’s feature film Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness is screened at Greek cinemas from June 17 distributed by Weird Wave.

Antoneta Kastrati: “‘Zana’ is also a film about the future”

Lume, an Albanian woman living in a small Kosovar village, is trying to come to terms with the loss of her little daughter who perished during the Kosovo war, while under pressure to bear a new one, in Antoneta Kastrati’s powerful debut feature film Zana.

In conversation with the director, ahead of the screening of the film within the context of the online edition of the 26^th Sarajevo Film Festival.

Since Zana is dedicated to both your mother and your sister who perished during the Kosovo war in 1999, is this film a tribute to them or does it also allude to something more universal?

I think it’s both.

For sure it’s about their memory, but it’s also about the future. This is the first bilingual project I’ve done, and has always been in the back of my mind.

It has to do with what it actually means to lose someone during the war and how it fundamentally changes our way of seeing life, how it becomes something more than just grieving.

That’s why I decided to tell the story of mothers, I’m a mother myself.

Were you already a mother once the film was initially conceived?

I was pregnant and then became a mother.

I knew what it means to lose a family member, and also the feeling of bringing a human being into the world. I could not fully understand what it means to lose a child, but I could feel it in my bones.

My sister was killed in front of my mother, she saw her death. She lived thirty minutes after that.

When you lose someone, your child, with whom you were inter-connected, you’re not living in the same universe anymore.

Time doesn’t flow the same way, because the dead are part of your life and you are part of theirs. They’re not gone. There’s a feeling of timelessness, and I tried to bring that up through the character of Lume.

Lume (Adriana Matoshi) surely doesn’t fully inhabit just one world. She seems to be in between worlds, between the one of her traumatic experiences/memories and that of the present. Had she also endured similar war-time experiences?

She hasn’t lost someone personally, but she deeply understood the script and felt it. Then, of course, I had to guide her, but she had already captured the essence of her character. As an actress, she has that kind of power.

Has it all been clearly scripted from the beginning, or has there also been some room for improvisation along the way?

Things change. We had to shorten some scenes, for example, because we didn’t have enough money, but everything was pretty much scripted, because I had been working on it for a very long time.

Moreover, if an actor/actress has suggestions, I’m open to change. Generally, though, 90% was scripted.

The paranormal/supernatural element is quite dominant in your film. Does it have some cultural relevance to rural Kosovo, where Zana is set, or does it have more to do with the subject-matter and Lume’s mentality?

It’s both.

In rural Kosovo, when you want to get pregnant, you go to a healer. It’s out of desperation, when there’s no choice.

There’s also of sexism and gender pressure. All the oppression later on builds up and women don’t know how to deal with it.

To me it was interesting to deal with dreams. As far the main character is concerned, I thought that this dreaming process could give her a way out, to convince her that what happens is caused by someone else and that she’s no different from the rest.

Did you grow up in a similar location to the Peja district, where the film was shot? You seem to be very familiar with the cultural context of such a place.

I grew up in a village, was the second youngest of six sisters, went to school and then my younger sister also went to school, but none of the other sisters did that.

I don’t know if there’s anything on the film that is not taken from something that’s real. I was also interested in the rituals between women, and some rituals are dying.

Did you want to preserve them on screen, in a fictional manner?

It’s not just about preservation, but about what they represent, their meaning.

The snow dominating the final scenes of Zana is spectacular, both aesthetically and narratively. Did you conceive it as some sort of redemption?

The snow element came to a little bit later during the writing process and it was a 100% clear that it was necessary, as a metaphor and on a symbolic level.

For me, the ending is bittersweet and gives you the possibility to let go of something, but then Lume’s still left with the feeling of her daughter. Some ask me, “Why didn’t you shoot your own story?” This is also my story.

And I did many interviews with women who had been through similar situations, and a great part of them is physically sick and suffers from headaches or epilepsy. Very few of them had kids after the war. “I can’t be a mother to the new kids,” some told me.

Have you managed to deal with or even overcome the loss of your mother and sister or not?

I don’t know, I carry it. What you see in the film is a diluted version of what I have personally experienced, which was actually a lot worse.

Of course we live -it’s not about that-, but it can happen any time.

Doesn’t it feel odd that, due of the pandemic, the screening of your film during the 26^th Sarajevo Film Festival will take place online and you will therefore have no chance to interact with the audience?

I was so happy to be invited by the Festival, because I’ve attended it a couple of times and really loved and respected it a lot. It’s one of the best festivals. So, I’m a little bit sad that I won’t have this chance.

The world -and the world of cinema, too- is not going to be the same, even when the pandemic eventually subsides. How does this situation affect you, both on a human and an artistic level?

There’s also a disappointment as far as I’m concerned, because there was going to be a limited theatrical release of the film in the USA, but what can you do? You have to adapt, so I’ve been trying to remain positive. There’s no other choice.

And the future is unknown.

More info about Antoneta Kastrati and Zana may be found in the film’s official website.

Zana will be screened within the context of the In Focus section of the online edition of the 26^th Sarajevo Film Festival (14-21 August 2020).