Reactions More Telling than Words
Golden-Bear winner Jasmila Žbanić talks about having her husband as a producer, the Muslim culture in Bosnia and her new film at the Berlinale, ON THE PATH.
Jasmila Žbanić
Four years after she won the Golden Bear for her first feature GRBAVICA, Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić is back in Competition with ON THE PATH (NA PUTU). At the Berlinale Talent Campus conference “The Storytelling Trojka”, she spoke about the different stages of filmmaking. Afterwards she talked about her new film.
Your first movie won the Golden Bear; what effect did that have on you and your career?
Of course, it feels good to know that people loved your movie, and it's something which could help me to produce films. But with my second movie, I still had to start from scratch.
ON THE PATH will premiere on Thursday. Could you tell us what it is about?
It's a love story which takes place in contemporary Sarajevo. Because of several issues, such as war trauma and the quest for his identity, the man goes into a radical religious group and he changes a lot.
During the panel, you said that ON THE PATH deals with a “hot theme” for Bosnia, because the idea came from a real life experience: A man, at a party, didn't want to shake your hand because you are a woman.
For me it was really important that the film was about Muslim society and Bosnian people, but during the writing process, I asked myself: is it also universal?
How is the situation in Bosnian cinema today?
After the war it was ruined, the whole industry stopped. We had to start anew. Now, our main goal is to find projects for co-production because countries like Germany and Austria offer some possibilities that you can't find in Bosnia.
Your husband is also your producer. How do you work with him?
He's an artist-producer, somebody who's really sensitive to artistic views. He sees to it that we do not spend more money than we actually have, but he really cares for my films. He feels certain things that nobody else does, and helps me to develop them. He allows me more freedom than a normal producer would do.
Can you talk about the editing process?
It was a long process, and I always want it to be longer and longer (laughs). I think that certain things need time; you need time to gain some distance from the material in order to see it with new eyes.
What are the sort of things you would cut?
Every time I felt that actors could do a scene without the dialogue I initially wrote, well I would cut it. Reactions are more telling than dialogues. I like to use them as a means to hide things, not to give information.
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