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Seventy years of Serbian political history are revealed in this poignant memoir, which won the IDFA award for Best Feature-Length Documentary.
In her latest examination of Serbia’s troubled past, director Mila Turajlic (Cinema Komunisto) casts her eye onto her own septuagenarian mother, Srbijanka. The former professor, politician and outspoken public figure and activist proves a captivating figure as she recalls her life in her volatile homeland from within the walls of her Belgrade apartment. She was a toddler in 1947 when the apartment was divided in two by the country’s victorious Communist leaders, and the door separating the Turajlic family from their new neighbours remained locked for decades. Now, in the presence of the cameras, opening that door allows the charismatic Srbijanka to reflect on personal as well as political divisions whose legacy continues to be felt.
Srbijanka’s fire for democracy across the decades fuels The Other Side of Everything, a daughter’s affectionate portrait of her mother set against a new generation of Serbs who struggle to believe contemporary Serbia has a place for them.
"The apartment’s history gives Srbijanka’s daughter a frame on which to hang her story of Yugoslavia and Serbia over the last century, yet her tireless mother is the film’s real, thought-provoking star as she casually details her part in the eventual overthrow of the monstrous Slobodan Milošević." – Screen Daily
