MENU

BE YOURSELF: I KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU

The four short films screened during the second half of the first day dedicated to untiling the mosaic of cinematically transformed experiences coming from the Balkans all connect through the compassion shown to the tireless and difficult task of not forgetting to remember oneself. While watching The Lark, Offside Again?, 45’ and Granny’s Sexual Life I noticed that one phrase kept coming back to mind: “I know what is best for you.”; the same thought echoing different meanings with regard to each short film discourse. Being yourself can entail having to deal with a constant push and pull between trusting those words as they are voiced from somewhere within versus from endless exterior sources. Becoming privy to the following perspectives makes for a good exercise of distinguishing some of its nuances, distinct intonations and intentions as they are transported onto the silver screen.

In ŠEVA / The Lark (2021), director Katarina Krstić reaches the peak of the self-defining confrontation through peeling back layers of self and time pertaining to a traumatic memory repressed by 19-year-old Iva (Snežana Dzogović). Her arrival in Belgrade the day before her entrance university exams takes an immediate left turn as Vuk (Darko Ivic), her supposed childhood crush, is entrusted by those closest to her with helping Iva settle not only into a new apartment but also into what was meant to be the beginning of a new and exciting life in the city. Quite transparently driven by worrying ulterior motives, the guy’s unwelcoming presence ends up leading the interactions between the two according to the wants of his own, one suspects all too familiar, sense of self-entitlement. Looking past the few signs of her fight or flight response being triggered, the woman is left exposed to having her painful past forcefully dug up. The Lark reopens scars with enough faith in its protagonist’s ability to not lose herself completely due to history repeating itself.

Afterward, a significant change of tone allows for the introduction of the comprehensivefilmic portrait of football enthusiast Azize Ay captured in Bu da mı Gol Değil? / Offside again? (2020), the short documentary by Feyzi Baran and Kamil Kahraman. More specifically, for the moving real story of Azize mainly following the sound of her own voice (expressing the aforementioned affirmation) and trusting it enough to let it drown out any other ones that might have tried to undermine its validity through the years. Although the first opportunity of joining a football team found Azize at the age of 48, anyone learning about the woman’s persevering nature growing up can easily tell that at any point during her younger days she would have been more than ready to start a professional football career, were it not for the challenges and obstacles born out of patriarchal prejudice. Giving voice to the opinions and thoughts of family members, friends, teammates and other acquaintances who’ve gotten to know Azize personally further supports her truly being shaped as a person by a lifetime’s worth of dedicated training and appreciation for her most ardent passion. Still, the inspiring efforts stand out as best acknowledged and validated in the productively explored line of thought of the main character, the two directors’ approach to documentary filmmaking making sure to never to stray too far away from calling attention to the significance of Azize’s own words and actions.

Screenings dedicated to the BE YOURSELF section of BBB’s 2022 Short Film Competition programme end with two animations coming from Croatia and Slovenia, drawing reactions from understanding “I know what’s best for you!” as an echoing shout wrapped up in fear, more specifically, in the cunning ways in which the emotion can overwhelm and intimidate someone into submission. Director Lucija Oroz creates 45’’ (2021), a visual symphony sensitive to the complex inner workings of affective experience. That pit in your stomach, heart skipping a beat and tight chest while scared to death regain in her animation process originating rhythm, sounds, tensions and memory, all flooding in like a thick fog clouding the mind and freezing the body. Through imagining detailed smoothly transitioning stages involved in a path of eventual release, Lucija skillfully tackles the need of showing, one can only assume, her experience of surviving through an eerie state of being we all intimately know. Babičino Seksualno Življenje / Granny’s Sexual Life’s (2021) distinctive crude animation style congruously outlines sexism’s abusive confines of fear as described through anonymous testimonies – encompassing Milena Miklavčič’s book Fire, Ass and Snakes are not Toys- belonging to some of the Slovenian women subjected to a cruel, immoral and inhumane pattern of behavior encouraged by the men around them during the first half of the 20 th century. Hundreds of years could not prevent such grotesque truths from coming to light and the brutality of that enforced reality from being further condemned through artistic expression. Granny’s Sexual Life demonstrates poignant receptiveness through the animated relaying of the previously documented collective pain and naturally or, in keeping true to the jarring nature of the subject, does not shy away from exposing abhorrent details of the events that took place, of how womanhood equating to expecting a certain degree of oppression was absurdly imposed as normalcy.