‘I had to plan to give birth in five hospitals on the way to Cannes’

Last summer, a heavily pregnant Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic found herself on a European odyssey. The Croatian filmmaker, who has resided in the US since pursuing a Master’s degree in film at Columbia University, was informed by her doctor that transatlantic travel was out of the question in July, the month when her baby was due and the same month when her debut feature, Murina, was scheduled to play at the Cannes Film Festival.

“We had to go back to Europe in May,” says Kusijanovic. “I was still doing a little bit of sound design and finishing up the film, so it was not too bad. We were in Slovenia, and then we drove to Cannes. It was interesting because I had to plan to give birth in five different hospitals on the way. I was in touch with all five.

“And just after my premiere at Cannes, I went to my Cannes doctor and he said: Look, I think that you are going to give birth any minute. So I got into the car with my husband and my brother. We drove 13 hours back home because the Monaco tunnel road was closed and we had to go all the way up the mountain for terrain.

Her son Petrus was born an hour after she made it through the hospital doors. Her delight was compounded by the announcement that Murina had won Caméra d'Or

“It was an all-night drive. And there was a huge line in front of us entering Croatia. Everybody was like honking. I opened the car door and I stuck my belly out and we went around.”

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Her son Petrus was born an hour after she made it through the hospital doors. Her delight was compounded by the announcement that Murina had won Caméra d’Or, the prize awarded at Cannes to the best first feature from all competitions and selections.

“To be honest, I was already represented by the same agents and managers way before Cannes and we were already taking steps towards the next film,” says Kusijanovic. “But in meetings, I do think that people first of all get most excited about the story. And then they talk about the movie you will make and the people you will make it with. And then your past work. The Caméra d’Or is in the fourth spot.”

Murina expands on Kusijanovic’s earlier short, Into the Blue, a film that was named Best Short at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for a Student Academy Award. Both projects pivot around an extraordinary performance from Gracija Filipovic, who was recently named one of the ten Berlinale Shooting Stars 2022.

“I worked with her for the first time when she was nine years old,” says Kusijanovic. “And then when she was 12, we did a music video and at 13, we shot Into the Blue. And really from that experience, I realised I want to make more films with her and I wanted to capture her before she becomes an adult. So I wrote the script for her and really rushed the producers as the whole idea was to build the film and the casting around her as a 16-year-old.”

Defiant teenager

Murina concerns Julija (Gracija Filipovic), a defiant, sense-talking teenager who lives on a picturesque island, beloved by foreign tourists, in the Adriatic Sea. Her life is dominated by her father, Ante (Leon Lucev), who is equally controlling of her mother, Nela (Danica Curcic). The corroding family unit is made all the more unstable by the arrival of Javier (Cliff Curtis), a family friend who comes to spend the weekend and arrange for the purchase of Ante’s land. Social, economic, and especially gender inequality underscore a volatile coming-of-age tale.

“When you feel powerless, you’re going to assume power over those that are weaker than you,” says the writer-director. “So the film follows the entire circle of power and how it shifts from the one below you and how you yield to the one above you. But then also, what reverses that circle is interesting, and that comes from the resilience of youth and not accepting the rules.”

Arriving hot on the heels of Hive, Blerta Basholli’s powerful, true life, Sundance-winning depiction of the systemic misogyny that one Albanian-Kosovar female entrepreneur faced as she formed an ajvar and honey producing collective, Murina offers a blistering take on sexual politics in the Balkans.

“This is not our mentality, the violence and putting women down and belittling them,” says Kusijanovic. “It’s just something that over time was embraced as our mentality, maybe because it was easier. These are not fictional characters. They’re real. They’re everywhere around us. I’ve watched them all of my childhood and adulthood.

“They are people that you pass on the street, and they say: why is she talking? Why is she even saying anything? And over time, you drink it up. And you think: oh, why am I speaking? It’s not just one person; it’s an environment. And in the street transfer and schools and families and politics. At the highest levels of society, it’s completely normal that people speak to you like that. I’m a highly educated person and the mayor of where we shot the film talked to me like that.”

'There are layers and layers of men in our society who are holding bureaucratic or semi-important positions, and who are defending their ways and themselves'

The film, too, has fallen foul of the pervasive sexism it depicts: “There are a lot of young women filmmakers in the Balkans,” says Kusijanovic. “And it seems like we are blocked and suppressed. Like, for example, with Murina it was not selected to represent Croatia for the Academy Awards, even though it’s the first time in 30 years that a Croatian film has won such a major award.

“There are layers and layers of men in our society who are holding bureaucratic or semi-important positions, and who are defending their ways and themselves. So I was really hoping that with the Caméra d’Or win, it would mark a new wave of young and young women directors. But it didn’t.”

She laughs: “Put this in the article if you can.”

Murina culminates in a thrilling underwater cave sequence, partly filmed on the island where the director’s grandparents lived and at the behest of her grandmother, who acted as an unofficial location scout.

“We shot that sequence in three different locations,” says the filmmaker. “We built in the underwater tunnel in a studio and we shot the pool on a green screen because to enter deep underwater tunnels in a real location would have been very, very dangerous. But the actual cave is real.

‘Terrifying’

“That was terrifying. We were on the outside of an island at the foot of the lighthouse. There were no real lights. We had to drive with a boat to get to that location. It was a place my grandmother told me about it.She used to swim there. It’s a pool surrounded by rocks. And it’s 40 metres deep.”

Kusijanovic began her career as a theatre actor aged six and continued throughout secondary school. She was hoping to become an architect but was keener on the design aspect than she was on the maths. Her family suggested she enrol in a production course in theatre and film that, in turn, led to an internship in New York. She subsequently trained with such prestigious programmes as the Berlinale Talent Lab, Sarajevo Talent Lab, and La Femis Producing Atelie. Murina was produced with the backing of the Cannes Cinéfondation and one Martin Scorsese, who helped develop the film under his Sikelia Productions imprint and who acted as the film’s executive producer.

“I met him already before the shoot, of course, and that inspired me,” says Kusijanovic. “They told me like, hey, we have like 30 minutes. And two and a half hours later we were still talking about films and faith and passion and religion. It was beautiful. And after I finished the film, he gave his notes. He was very encouraging. I think that he said that every filmmaker knows what is best for their film because they spend most time with it.”

Murina opens on April 8th.