After its world premiere in the competition program for medium-length and short films of the Visions du Reel festival in Nyon, North American premiere at Hot Docs and regional premiere at the competition program of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival, as well as appearances at festivals in Greece, Azerbaijan and Iceland, theshort documentary Then Comes the Evening will soon be part of the program of the 34th Entrevues Belfort International du Film; the festival will take place November 18th-25th.
The documentary depicts the lives of two old women living in isolation in the hills of Eastern Bosnia. Nature is an entity that grandmothers “talk to,” listen to, and whom they respect. The film highlights an intangible cultural heritage through the depiction of fairy tales and rituals against bad weather, hail and storm. It shows the simplicity and purity of their lives as well as their painstaking labor. In the day-to-day affairs they perform, the sublimity and difficulty of these activities are revealed and brought to life. The film deals with everyday life through genre scenes of rural existence, showing the care and closeness of two elderly women, both in their mutual relations and in relation to nature.
The screenplay is by Maja Novaković, who has also produced the film alongside Milan Milosavljević. The film stars Vinka Radić and Obrenija Radić. The director of photography is Jasna Prolić. The film was edited by Marija Kovačina. The film was created under the auspices of Akademski filmski centar (AFC) and Dom Kulture Studentski grad.
Maja Novakovic (1987, Srebrenica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina) completed her graduate and master’s studies at the Department of Art History at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. She attended a film directing workshop at the Student City Cultural Center in New Belgrade. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies with the thesis The Poetics of Heritage in the work of Sergei Parajanov at the Department of Art History at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. She is an associate of the Center for Museology and Heritology at the same faculty. Employed as a research associate at the Mathematical Institute of SASA in Belgrade. She is the author of a short experimental film Dying Film (2015), which has been screened at festivals in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Poland.
The film runtime is 28 minutes. The production of this film was supported by Film Center Serbia. Recently, The Institute of Documentary Film nominated this movie for the Silver Eye Award for Best Short Film from Central and Eastern Europe. The awards will be presented for the eleventh time, during the Ji.hlava festival in Czechia.