Photo: KINORAMA ZAGREB
A cinematic anti-postcard
In conversation
with Hana Jušić.
In twenty years since Croatian independence, only two feature films were made by women. Now Hana Jušić breaks the long silence with her honest, intelligent and realist drama — could she inject new vitality into Croatian cinema? This young filmmaker has attracted attention with her first feature-length film, Quit Staring at My Plate, which won her Best European Film in Venice last year. Devoid of sentimentality, her debut film deals with family relationships and interdependence with a singular, raw and uncompromised approach. It follows Marijana, a young woman living in a conservative and provincial town, whose everyday life is crushed between the walls of a small apartment she shares with her dysfunctional family. When her father suffers from a stroke, Marijana takes the role as head of the family and embarks on search for control over her life and her body.
Hana Jušić in her zagreb apartment
TIB: Originally you come from the coastal town of Šibenik but you grew up in Zagreb, the capital city. How did this experience influence your sense of belonging and what impact did your childhood have on you as a film director?
Hana Jušić: I think leaving Šibenik for Zagreb made me very insecure during some periods of my life. My parents were poor and decided to send me to a school in the center of Zagreb, out of some kind of intellectual snobbism. They wanted me to have the best education, but there I felt uneasy as most of the children in my class came from well-off families. I remember once some girls from my class wrote me threatening letters that said I should go back to Dalmatia where I belong, that I should not pollute Zagreb with my presence. Meanwhile, this was a period when in Šibenik they began to make funny of me for catching Zagreb dialect and that city did not perceive me as one of their own anymore. I felt that I belonged nowhere; in Zagreb I felt unaccepted and Šibenik was becoming more remote. This trauma from the beginning where I felt rejected from both places has marked me in a sense of feeling personally inadequate.
Later on you studied literature and then film. Where did this decision come from? To move from the position of someone who analyses stories and novels to someone who finds and invents them via film?
I wanted to study film already in high school but I was not feeling ready for it. I was shy and I couldn’t imagine going to the drama academy, it seemed like something unattainable to me. So I studied literature and English because I loved to read and watch movies. There we also studied the history of film, so during my studies I began to develop interest in it. That entire period I felt somehow unfulfilled, I was carrying stories inside my head but could not write well. My boyfriend at the time was a poet whose career rapidly took off. He published his first collection of poems while I felt I was becoming a burden to him with my frustration and discontent. Seeing him do so well has made me realise that if you do what you love, it can be so light and beautiful. So I decided to study film and I am very happy about that decision.
Which movies would you say were formative for you during your studies?
Today I find it funny that I mostly loved Godard and movies of the French New Wave. My favourite movies were Woman is a Woman and Hiroshima My Love from Godard, and Naïve Girl from Chabrol. I think those are the movies that you can love in your twenties. Later on, I began watching contemporary productions and going to festivals. Now that I have travelled with my own movie on festivals, I have grown tired of recent movies and I am again watching mostly older ones.
For Quit Staring At My Plate you also wrote the script. Do you usually write scripts for your movies?
I am very comfortable with writing scripts and I see directing as something that allows me to put my stories into motion. It seems to me that writing a screenplay is easier than writing a story or a novel because you don’t need to develop a style, but instead you focus on dialogues. When I am working on a story it excites me to imagine how it will look visually.
What kinds of stories interest you on a dramaturgic level?
I am mostly interested in relationships between people that are permeated with a certain feeling of discomfort. I have a passion towards showing people in a bad light.
Do these themes come from your personal life?
I have a feeling that, in general, I like to make fun of other people. You should always be ironic toward yourself, and I like people who are able to be sarcastic about themselves. I don’t like when people take themselves too seriously and I also don’t like to take my characters too seriously, or show them as some sort of big heroes.
Quit Staring At My Plate was filmed in Šibenik, a beautiful and ancient town, but your camera resists the cliché aesthetics of harmonious touristic panoramas. Instead, the shots of a dense working class neighborhood prevail where a cramped and stifled apartment becomes the locus of a family drama. You are showing us another face of the city. How was the experience of returning to Šibenik to shoot this film?
I have chosen Šibenik mostly because I am very familiar with the mentality of people who live there. The thought of filming a movie in an environment that I know nothing of seems frightening to me. When it comes to the cityscape, I know Šibenik in a way that I know all those side streets well and I understand the essence of that city — although I actually never lived there.
In the movie, a string of subjects opens up; we can talk about patriarchy, family relations, macho culture, provincial conservatism, socio-economic situation in Dalmatia and so on. Some of them are stereotypes linked to Dalmatian as well as wider Mediterranean culture. Was your intention with this movie to approach such stereotypes in a new way?
I must say that I do not know of any Croatian movie where such subjects have been exposed. Firstly, we rarely have a main character that is female so this is already quite specific. I have not thought of making something very new and different, I didn’t want to make a movie that was a grimy social drama either. With this movie I wanted to add something that would be engaging in a different way and make those characters stand out. Visually, I wanted everything to appear stale yet colourful. Many will find this movie utterly ugly and consider it to be a movie about poor and ugly people. I find this movie beautiful but not in a classical sense, as we wanted to achieve a certain aesthetic of ugliness. It seems to me that we simply tried to translate the atmosphere of a back alley in Šibenik in the midst of a summer heat, and we thought about how to achieve this in a cinematic way.
I think the soundscape contributed to creating a powerful atmosphere as well. Who made the music and what is your attitude towards using music in your movies?
We wanted to avoid capturing typical Mediterranean scenery and we tried to apply the same process to the music to avoid it being overly dramatic or sweet. We wanted music to be in counterpoint with the image. So we created electronic music, which was played on analogue instruments, as the bands did it in Germany in the 70s. Then we found Hrvoje Nikšić, who is making this kind of music, and when he saw the movie he found a potential there for his music. I think he did a terrific job in creating music specifically for this movie. I wanted to raise the music on an emotional level in a way that it allows you to sense Marijana’s strength, which we can’t always read on her face.
Were you planning to use music in this movie or was it a spontaneous decision?
In the beginning I thought that this would be a movie without music, but already when we started shooting we noticed that the music would help us a lot. It took us a long time to realize what kind of music it would be. It is one of the segments I am most satisfied with.
Regardless of the new situations and challenges that Marijana faces, she seems to remain somewhat unaffected. It could be that her character will evolve, but beyond the 105 minutes of the movie’s duration. Was this your intention?
It is very utopian to think that people can change so easily. The fact that someone can transform themselves is quite determined by their social class.
Not everyone can afford to escape somewhere and start from scratch. This is something that Hollywood imposes on us, but actually it is a privilege of the bourgeoisie and middle classes, such as going to a psychiatrist when you are feeling depressed. I wanted to remain within the limits of reality; what can someone who was born in such a family do? Marijana is similar to them and for her there is no new beginning.
Would you say that Marijana liberated herself in some other, subtler way?
People who have seen the movie are split between those that can identify with Marijana and those who cannot. She is partially based on me — I can really identify with her. I think that she has changed in a way that she became more capable of bearing her life more easily. Before she was not thinking too much about her life, she was imprisoned by it. Through conscious decisions — such as choosing to have sex with three guys, to revolt against her mother, to consciously leave and then to return — she has in a way matured.
In Dalmatia there are many cases of unmarried women that stay with their parents until the end, take care of them and change their diapers. They go to work, have dinner with them, watch TV and that’s it. She finally decided to accept her life, which I think is legit.
The narrative builds up quite quickly through its dramatic climax — father’s stroke, which leaves him paralysed. This occurs in the beginning of the movie and afterwards it seems like you search for different versions to end the story. How was the initial process of constructing the main character and the entire narrative?
When I began working on a script I started with the final scene, I knew that her journey begins with parents and ends with them. Not for a moment have I thought that she could escape from them. In the final scene Marijana takes a bus with desire to escape to Zagreb, but she gets a panic attack when realising she is surrounded by strangers. When she decides to go back to her family she knows that this is it for her.
With Marijana being in the centre of the movie, there is a risk that if the audience cannot identify with her they could distance themselves from the movie. What is your view on this and your intention towards the audience?
If they don’t feel a certain empathy towards her then for them the whole movie fails. This movie is based on Marijana and she leaves many people completely cold, so for them the movie doesn’t work. There are others in which Marijana awakens something or they can identify with her. My attitude is not to be indifferent to the audience. I have made this film with the intention that Marijana can be attractive in some way.
For Mia Petričević, who plays Marijana, this was the first role and in fact she has never acted before. Considering this, she delivers an exceptional performance — her face carries the entire movie, melancholic yet powerful, tired yet ready to stand up and fight.
Considering that she doesn’t speak much, Marijana was under-defined when I created her on the paper. When I found Mia and began working with her, the character of Marijana began to emerge. She brought a lot of her own strength in that character. In reality she is a very warm person that laughs a lot, so I think that she has channelled her inner sharpness really well. Although she seems joyful there is also something different inside her, otherwise I think she wouldn’t be able to bring it out of her so well.
They go to work, have dinner with them, watch TV and that’s it. She finally decided to accept her life, which I think is legit.
The narrative builds up quite quickly through its dramatic climax — father’s stroke, which leaves him paralysed. This occurs in the beginning of the movie and afterwards it seems like you search for different versions to end the story. How was the initial process of constructing the main character and the entire narrative?
When I began working on a script I started with the final scene, I knew that her journey begins with parents and ends with them. Not for a moment have I thought that she could escape from them. In the final scene Marijana takes a bus with desire to escape to Zagreb, but she gets a panic attack when realising she is surrounded by strangers. When she decides to go back to her family she knows that this is it for her.
With Marijana being in the centre of the movie, there is a risk that if the audience cannot identify with her they could distance themselves from the movie. What is your view on this and your intention towards the audience? If they don’t feel a certain empathy towards her then for them the whole movie fails. This movie is based on Marijana and she leaves many people completely cold, so for them the movie doesn’t work. There are others in which Marijana awakens something or they can identify with her. My attitude is not to be indifferent to the audience. I have made this film with the intention that Marijana can be attractive in some way.
For Mia Petričević, who plays Marijana, this was the first role and in fact she has never acted before. Considering this, she delivers an exceptional performance — her face carries the entire movie, melancholic yet powerful, tired yet ready to stand up and fight.
Considering that she doesn’t speak much, Marijana was under-defined when I created her on the paper. When I found Mia and began working with her, the character of Marijana began to emerge. She brought a lot of her own strength in that character. In reality she is a very warm person that laughs a lot, so I think that she has channelled her inner sharpness really well. Although she seems joyful there is also something different inside her, otherwise I think she wouldn’t be able to bring it out of her so well.
It seems to me that there is another side of sensuality emanating from the movie. It’s not that sort of cinematic seduction that we are used to — scenes of pleasures like having sex, enjoying food, swimming or sunbathing. Instead of being pleasant and enticing these scenes in your movie have an almost negative effect. The food is not tasty, and the sexual scenes are primitive and raw. Can you say something about this?
That is a matter of taste. I don’t like movies where people enjoy food and look beautiful, it always seems so corny to me. To show things that are imposed on us is much more intriguing to me. We know that eating as well as having sex in real life differ from the way they are portrayed in the movies. I am interested in showing things as they really are.
Why was it important for you to show Marijana’s sexual side?
Since we are following Marijana so closely the entire time it would be unfair not to show her sexual side. I like to show sex scenes because I think sex is an important part of our life and I like when it is presented realistically. In my first draft of the script Marijana was beginning to fall in love with some guy but then I realised that this story does not come out of her character. It seemed to me that Marijana is a character that much more easily instrumentalises men, so in the end we created a scene where she is having sex with three guys. This happened because she decided that she wanted to lose her virginity that evening, not because she has let it happen. It seems to me that when women decide to do this, men are just instruments for them to eradicate that. Only men think that a woman would fall in love with a guy she loses her virginity with. I have learned from listening to my girlfriend’s experiences that it is more likely that women just want to do it so they can get rid of it. Marijana chose to do it in a way that would be least intimate. Them being three only decreases the possibility for it to be an intimate act. Many people refer to this scene as raping, which it clearly isn’t. The three of them did it because they felt she wanted it and the entire event hasn’t changed Marijana very much.
Don’t you think that it originated from her need for love, to be at least momentarily loved?
I think it’s not so much a desire for love but it is more about letting something happen to her that evening. She has a need to be loved by her brother and by her mother. That evening she runs away from watching TV with them because the environment was crushing her, then she also escapes the boring birthday party with her girlfriends, which she was invited to. I think she just wanted to experience something that she chose for herself.
The relationship of individual and family haunts also your earlier short films. Why is it important to talk about functions and dysfunctions of this primary social community?
I didn't deliberately choose to talk about families because I think it is important or relevant. It just interested me to look closely at a group of individuals that are confined in a small space, that are dependent on each other, but most of the time can't stand each other. These kinds of relationships, multi-layered and very burdened, interested me at the point when I was writing the script. I think that I am through with families; I would like to make a film about something completely different now.
Interview: Nina Vukelić
Portrait: Sara Pukanić
Movie stills: Quit Staring at My Plate, 2016
Photo: KINORAMA ZAGREB
A cinematic anti-postcard
In conversation
with Hana Jušić.
In twenty years since Croatian independence, only two feature films were made by women. Now Hana Jušić breaks the long silence with her honest, intelligent and realist drama — could she inject new vitality into Croatian cinema? This young filmmaker has attracted attention with her first feature-length film, Quit Staring at My Plate, which won her Best European Film in Venice last year. Devoid of sentimentality, her debut film deals with family relationships and interdependence with a singular, raw and uncompromised approach. It follows Marijana, a young woman living in a conservative and provincial town, whose everyday life is crushed between the walls of a small apartment she shares with her dysfunctional family. When her father suffers from a stroke, Marijana takes the role as head of the family and embarks on search for control over her life and her body.
Hana Jušić in her zagreb apartment
TIB: Originally you come from the coastal town of Šibenik but you grew up in Zagreb, the capital city. How did this experience influence your sense of belonging and what impact did your childhood have on you as a film director?
Hana Jušić: I think leaving Šibenik for Zagreb made me very insecure during some periods of my life. My parents were poor and decided to send me to a school in the center of Zagreb, out of some kind of intellectual snobbism. They wanted me to have the best education, but there I felt uneasy as most of the children in my class came from well-off families. I remember once some girls from my class wrote me threatening letters that said I should go back to Dalmatia where I belong, that I should not pollute Zagreb with my presence. Meanwhile, this was a period when in Šibenik they began to make funny of me for catching Zagreb dialect and that city did not perceive me as one of their own anymore. I felt that I belonged nowhere; in Zagreb I felt unaccepted and Šibenik was becoming more remote. This trauma from the beginning where I felt rejected from both places has marked me in a sense of feeling personally inadequate.
Later on you studied literature and then film. Where did this decision come from? To move from the position of someone who analyses stories and novels to someone who finds and invents them via film?
I wanted to study film already in high school but I was not feeling ready for it. I was shy and I couldn’t imagine going to the drama academy, it seemed like something unattainable to me. So I studied literature and English because I loved to read and watch movies. There we also studied the history of film, so during my studies I began to develop interest in it. That entire period I felt somehow unfulfilled, I was carrying stories inside my head but could not write well. My boyfriend at the time was a poet whose career rapidly took off. He published his first collection of poems while I felt I was becoming a burden to him with my frustration and discontent. Seeing him do so well has made me realise that if you do what you love, it can be so light and beautiful. So I decided to study film and I am very happy about that decision.
Which movies would you say were formative for you during your studies?
Today I find it funny that I mostly loved Godard and movies of the French New Wave. My favourite movies were Woman is a Woman and Hiroshima My Love from Godard, and Naïve Girl from Chabrol. I think those are the movies that you can love in your twenties. Later on, I began watching contemporary productions and going to festivals. Now that I have travelled with my own movie on festivals, I have grown tired of recent movies and I am again watching mostly older ones.
For Quit Staring At My Plate you also wrote the script. Do you usually write scripts for your movies?
I am very comfortable with writing scripts and I see directing as something that allows me to put my stories into motion. It seems to me that writing a screenplay is easier than writing a story or a novel because you don’t need to develop a style, but instead you focus on dialogues. When I am working on a story it excites me to imagine how it will look visually.
What kinds of stories interest you on a dramaturgic level?
I am mostly interested in relationships between people that are permeated with a certain feeling of discomfort. I have a passion towards showing people in a bad light.
Do these themes come from your personal life?
I have a feeling that, in general, I like to make fun of other people. You should always be ironic toward yourself, and I like people who are able to be sarcastic about themselves. I don’t like when people take themselves too seriously and I also don’t like to take my characters too seriously, or show them as some sort of big heroes.
Quit Staring At My Plate was filmed in Šibenik, a beautiful and ancient town, but your camera resists the cliché aesthetics of harmonious touristic panoramas. Instead, the shots of a dense working class neighborhood prevail where a cramped and stifled apartment becomes the locus of a family drama. You are showing us another face of the city. How was the experience of returning to Šibenik to shoot this film?
I have chosen Šibenik mostly because I am very familiar with the mentality of people who live there. The thought of filming a movie in an environment that I know nothing of seems frightening to me. When it comes to the cityscape, I know Šibenik in a way that I know all those side streets well and I understand the essence of that city — although I actually never lived there.
In the movie, a string of subjects opens up; we can talk about patriarchy, family relations, macho culture, provincial conservatism, socio-economic situation in Dalmatia and so on. Some of them are stereotypes linked to Dalmatian as well as wider Mediterranean culture. Was your intention with this movie to approach such stereotypes in a new way?
I must say that I do not know of any Croatian movie where such subjects have been exposed. Firstly, we rarely have a main character that is female so this is already quite specific. I have not thought of making something very new and different, I didn’t want to make a movie that was a grimy social drama either. With this movie I wanted to add something that would be engaging in a different way and make those characters stand out. Visually, I wanted everything to appear stale yet colourful. Many will find this movie utterly ugly and consider it to be a movie about poor and ugly people. I find this movie beautiful but not in a classical sense, as we wanted to achieve a certain aesthetic of ugliness. It seems to me that we simply tried to translate the atmosphere of a back alley in Šibenik in the midst of a summer heat, and we thought about how to achieve this in a cinematic way.
I think the soundscape contributed to creating a powerful atmosphere as well. Who made the music and what is your attitude towards using music in your movies?
We wanted to avoid capturing typical Mediterranean scenery and we tried to apply the same process to the music to avoid it being overly dramatic or sweet. We wanted music to be in counterpoint with the image. So we created electronic music, which was played on analogue instruments, as the bands did it in Germany in the 70s. Then we found Hrvoje Nikšić, who is making this kind of music, and when he saw the movie he found a potential there for his music. I think he did a terrific job in creating music specifically for this movie. I wanted to raise the music on an emotional level in a way that it allows you to sense Marijana’s strength, which we can’t always read on her face.
Were you planning to use music in this movie or was it a spontaneous decision?
In the beginning I thought that this would be a movie without music, but already when we started shooting we noticed that the music would help us a lot. It took us a long time to realize what kind of music it would be. It is one of the segments I am most satisfied with.
Regardless of the new situations and challenges that Marijana faces, she seems to remain somewhat unaffected. It could be that her character will evolve, but beyond the 105 minutes of the movie’s duration. Was this your intention?
It is very utopian to think that people can change so easily. The fact that someone can transform themselves is quite determined by their social class.
Not everyone can afford to escape somewhere and start from scratch. This is something that Hollywood imposes on us, but actually it is a privilege of the bourgeoisie and middle classes, such as going to a psychiatrist when you are feeling depressed. I wanted to remain within the limits of reality; what can someone who was born in such a family do? Marijana is similar to them and for her there is no new beginning.
Would you say that Marijana liberated herself in some other, subtler way?
People who have seen the movie are split between those that can identify with Marijana and those who cannot. She is partially based on me — I can really identify with her. I think that she has changed in a way that she became more capable of bearing her life more easily. Before she was not thinking too much about her life, she was imprisoned by it. Through conscious decisions — such as choosing to have sex with three guys, to revolt against her mother, to consciously leave and then to return — she has in a way matured.
In Dalmatia there are many cases of unmarried women that stay with their parents until the end, take care of them and change their diapers. They go to work, have dinner with them, watch TV and that’s it. She finally decided to accept her life, which I think is legit.
The narrative builds up quite quickly through its dramatic climax — father’s stroke, which leaves him paralysed. This occurs in the beginning of the movie and afterwards it seems like you search for different versions to end the story. How was the initial process of constructing the main character and the entire narrative?
When I began working on a script I started with the final scene, I knew that her journey begins with parents and ends with them. Not for a moment have I thought that she could escape from them. In the final scene Marijana takes a bus with desire to escape to Zagreb, but she gets a panic attack when realising she is surrounded by strangers. When she decides to go back to her family she knows that this is it for her.
With Marijana being in the centre of the movie, there is a risk that if the audience cannot identify with her they could distance themselves from the movie. What is your view on this and your intention towards the audience?
If they don’t feel a certain empathy towards her then for them the whole movie fails. This movie is based on Marijana and she leaves many people completely cold, so for them the movie doesn’t work. There are others in which Marijana awakens something or they can identify with her. My attitude is not to be indifferent to the audience. I have made this film with the intention that Marijana can be attractive in some way.
For Mia Petričević, who plays Marijana, this was the first role and in fact she has never acted before. Considering this, she delivers an exceptional performance — her face carries the entire movie, melancholic yet powerful, tired yet ready to stand up and fight.
Considering that she doesn’t speak much, Marijana was under-defined when I created her on the paper. When I found Mia and began working with her, the character of Marijana began to emerge. She brought a lot of her own strength in that character. In reality she is a very warm person that laughs a lot, so I think that she has channelled her inner sharpness really well. Although she seems joyful there is also something different inside her, otherwise I think she wouldn’t be able to bring it out of her so well.
They go to work, have dinner with them, watch TV and that’s it. She finally decided to accept her life, which I think is legit.
The narrative builds up quite quickly through its dramatic climax — father’s stroke, which leaves him paralysed. This occurs in the beginning of the movie and afterwards it seems like you search for different versions to end the story. How was the initial process of constructing the main character and the entire narrative?
When I began working on a script I started with the final scene, I knew that her journey begins with parents and ends with them. Not for a moment have I thought that she could escape from them. In the final scene Marijana takes a bus with desire to escape to Zagreb, but she gets a panic attack when realising she is surrounded by strangers. When she decides to go back to her family she knows that this is it for her.
With Marijana being in the centre of the movie, there is a risk that if the audience cannot identify with her they could distance themselves from the movie. What is your view on this and your intention towards the audience? If they don’t feel a certain empathy towards her then for them the whole movie fails. This movie is based on Marijana and she leaves many people completely cold, so for them the movie doesn’t work. There are others in which Marijana awakens something or they can identify with her. My attitude is not to be indifferent to the audience. I have made this film with the intention that Marijana can be attractive in some way.
For Mia Petričević, who plays Marijana, this was the first role and in fact she has never acted before. Considering this, she delivers an exceptional performance — her face carries the entire movie, melancholic yet powerful, tired yet ready to stand up and fight.
Considering that she doesn’t speak much, Marijana was under-defined when I created her on the paper. When I found Mia and began working with her, the character of Marijana began to emerge. She brought a lot of her own strength in that character. In reality she is a very warm person that laughs a lot, so I think that she has channelled her inner sharpness really well. Although she seems joyful there is also something different inside her, otherwise I think she wouldn’t be able to bring it out of her so well.
It seems to me that there is another side of sensuality emanating from the movie. It’s not that sort of cinematic seduction that we are used to — scenes of pleasures like having sex, enjoying food, swimming or sunbathing. Instead of being pleasant and enticing these scenes in your movie have an almost negative effect. The food is not tasty, and the sexual scenes are primitive and raw. Can you say something about this?
That is a matter of taste. I don’t like movies where people enjoy food and look beautiful, it always seems so corny to me. To show things that are imposed on us is much more intriguing to me. We know that eating as well as having sex in real life differ from the way they are portrayed in the movies. I am interested in showing things as they really are.
Why was it important for you to show Marijana’s sexual side?
Since we are following Marijana so closely the entire time it would be unfair not to show her sexual side. I like to show sex scenes because I think sex is an important part of our life and I like when it is presented realistically. In my first draft of the script Marijana was beginning to fall in love with some guy but then I realised that this story does not come out of her character. It seemed to me that Marijana is a character that much more easily instrumentalises men, so in the end we created a scene where she is having sex with three guys. This happened because she decided that she wanted to lose her virginity that evening, not because she has let it happen. It seems to me that when women decide to do this, men are just instruments for them to eradicate that. Only men think that a woman would fall in love with a guy she loses her virginity with. I have learned from listening to my girlfriend’s experiences that it is more likely that women just want to do it so they can get rid of it. Marijana chose to do it in a way that would be least intimate. Them being three only decreases the possibility for it to be an intimate act. Many people refer to this scene as raping, which it clearly isn’t. The three of them did it because they felt she wanted it and the entire event hasn’t changed Marijana very much.
Don’t you think that it originated from her need for love, to be at least momentarily loved?
I think it’s not so much a desire for love but it is more about letting something happen to her that evening. She has a need to be loved by her brother and by her mother. That evening she runs away from watching TV with them because the environment was crushing her, then she also escapes the boring birthday party with her girlfriends, which she was invited to. I think she just wanted to experience something that she chose for herself.
The relationship of individual and family haunts also your earlier short films. Why is it important to talk about functions and dysfunctions of this primary social community?
I didn't deliberately choose to talk about families because I think it is important or relevant. It just interested me to look closely at a group of individuals that are confined in a small space, that are dependent on each other, but most of the time can't stand each other. These kinds of relationships, multi-layered and very burdened, interested me at the point when I was writing the script. I think that I am through with families; I would like to make a film about something completely different now.
Interview: Nina Vukelić
Portrait: Sara Pukanić
Movie stills: Quit Staring at My Plate, 2016
