BHFF ’12: Jasmina

Stipe might be a misanthropic drunk, but he periodically seeks enlightenment through a New Agey handstand exercise.  It is not much to hang your hat on, but a baby Bosnian refugee is in no position to be picky.  A few heartstrings just might be tugged in Nedžad Begović’s Jasmina (trailer here), which screened last night as part of the 2012 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival in New York.

Jasmina is not an orphan, at least not yet.  Her parents are doctors in Sarajevo, who care enough about their baby girl to secure a place for her and her grandmother Safa in a humanitarian convoy headed towards a picturesque town on Croatia’s Adriatic coast.  As the shelling begins in earnest, Sarajevo is cut off from the rest of the world, leaving Safa and Jasmina entirely on their own.  To make matters worse, Safa must also contend with the aggressively obnoxious behavior of their next door neighbor, Stipe.  The compounded stress takes a toll on her health.

At first, doing the right thing does not come easily to Stipe, but once he reluctantly starts looking after Jasmina and visiting the hospitalized Safa, he starts to care for them both quite deeply.  It would sound like quite a convenient transformation, but Begović deftly establishes a sad backstory for Stipe that makes it all quite believable.

While Jasmina is a cute kid, the film is not cloying, always remaining cognizant of the tragic event unfolding in Sarajevo.  The real life daughter of cinematographer Almir Djikoli, young Amila is an unusually expressive, camera-friendly baby, which helps a lot.  Bosnian theater actor and television star Zijah Sokolivić nicely conveys both Stipe’s drunken buffoonery and genuine pathos, without blatantly imitating the old Chaplin shtick.  His late blooming pseudo-chemistry with Nada Durevska’s Safa is particularly touching.

As is sometimes the case with independent filmmaking, the production of Jasmina was a real family affair, with Begović’s daughter Naida serving as co-production designer and also representing the film last night during the BHFF’s post-screening Q&A.  Despite the scant budget, the film looks great.  Evidently, their primary location is a Croatian village practically rendered a ghost town because of water-supply contamination, which is a terrible waste, considering its old world character and stunning seacoast scenery.

Jasmina is a very humane film in an appropriately messy way.  It might frustrate some viewers by leaving many questions for the future unresolved, but that is how things are during wartime.  A very strong representative of Bosnian-Herzegovinian cinema, Jasmina was one of the highlights of the 2012 Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival in New York, which still has further screenings this afternoon (5/5), continuing well into the evening.

BHFF ’12: Shorts sampler

Is it possible to lead a normal life after witnessing the horrors of war?  During the upcoming 2012 Bosnian-HerzegovinianFilm Festival, at least two short films will directly grapple with that question, while one suggests it is indeed possible, through its very example.

One of the best shorts just hitting the festival circuit, Jons Vukorep’s outstanding Short for Vernesa B. is a lamenting tribute to Bosnian actress-vocalist Vernesa Berbo, starring Vernesa Berbo.  Through a complicated narrative structure, it depicts the challenges of her life after seeking asylum in Germany.  It is hard to analyze in-depth, without comprising the initial viewing experience, but it is safe to say Berbo is a very compelling screen presence.

Sadly, many viewers will have a good idea where Elvir Muminović’s Neverending Story is headed, but it is still a powerful trip.  Emir was also an asylum seeker in Germany, who eventually met and married Kirsten.  When a miscarriage ends their hopes of having their own children, they turn to his native Bosnia with the intention of adopting.  They find the perfect girl, but the revelation she is in fact Serbian causes a deep fissure between the couple.  Muminović eschews neat and tidy Oprah lessons, forcing the audience to face up to some hard facts about human nature.

In marked contrast, Al Mehičević’s English language Gold Diggers is a humorous anecdotal film in the tradition of O. Henry.  As it opens, three miners trapped by a cave-in are eagerly anticipating their thirty minutes of fame as they await their imminent rescue.  However, when their mistresses confront their wives at the disaster site, the media gets wind of a bigger story.  Gold Diggers is amusing but rather light weight.  Frankly, it is the sort of short that plays well at festivals, but its appearance here is somewhat significant.  Never referencing the war (which would be out of place in this context), it has none of the terrible weight of history distinguishing many Bosnian films in recent years.  Rather, it takes a potential tragedy and turns it into a vehicle for comedy.

Indeed, the paradox of the annual Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival is that it is one of the friendliest and most welcoming festivals in New York, screening some of the deepest, most elegiac films.  (Of course there are always notable exceptions, like last year’s drolly entertaining music documentary White Button.)  A now well-established tradition coming hard on the heels of Tribeca, the BHFF is once again highly recommended, featuring many excellent short films making their American debuts.  It opens tomorrow (5/3) with Danis Tanović’s sensitively rendered Cirkus Columbia, featuring the great Miki Manojlović, and ends this Saturday (5/5) with Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey.