Jasmila Zbanic Quotes
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As a woman filmmaker in Bosnia, I have more privileges than disadvantages. I feel I can do more than my male colleagues with a motherly approach rather than a male approach.
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It was important to feel that you were resisting the fascism around you. But we had no electricity to watch movies. We were imagining our movies.
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Film is the most liberal of arts and, at the same time, it can be a very conservative art. Money that is involved in filmmaking is distributed mostly to men, thus creating a celluloid ceiling for women.
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The more empathy you have and the more connected you are to society, the better off you'll be.
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What I'm trying to do with my work is to break open things that are sealed, that are under siege.
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I have never understood why people identify with criminals: even if your father and grandfather were criminal, you have to find a way to be free.
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In my country, though it is very patriarchal and male-dominated, the public enjoys women-directed movies.
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I hope that this will change your viewing on Bosnia.
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My generation has to deal with how to overcome a trauma, how to overcome destruction, and how to tell the truth to the next generation.
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I want to create films that will speak to different parts of our hearts and brains, stories told from a different angle.
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Always, for me, when I am dealing with subjects related to my country that are very emotional, I have to find the right tone and distance because, obviously, I start with anger, asking 'why that happened' and 'why it is still happening.' I work to rise above my personal anger but still stay connected to my emotions. That's a big challenge.
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'Grbavica' is first of all a story about love, about love that is not pure because it has been mixed with hate, disgust, trauma, despair.
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I want to show that drama doesn't lie only in blood and destroyed buildings but in daily life, in ordinary human beings.
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I did go to a film school in Sarajevo. I studied film and theatre directing. There was a war raging in the country while I was studying, and we did not have neither electricity nor cinemas for three and a half years.
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The Wahhabi movement is a form of radical Islam that people here say did not exist before in Bosnia, where Islam had co-existed with other major religions and was much softer and more liberal.
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'For Those Who Can Tell No Tales' is a story of memory and the energy of places that remain full of drama, pain, and denial.
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I have always written - since I was a kid. I might say that I am essentially a writer who is bored to be alone in the room writing. I need to have more people around me. So, I 'write' with a film camera and have a party at the same time by having a bunch of people around.
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If you love your film, you have to fight for it.
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In the case of Bosnia, studies showed that turning to religion was a consequence of post-war depression and dissatisfaction.
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I grew up during the shift to socialism, and since it was my childhood, I used to think that everything was beautiful and human.
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Music, for me, in a film is never... I don't want to use music as a slave of the image. I want music to be art, or a body in itself to give something to the film.
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As a filmgoer and a filmmaker, I want to participate and tell stories of woman and man that will move us forward.
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As a child, I used to 'torture' other kids by making them be in my shows. I would sell tickets to neighbors and organize performances.
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I am successful if I manage to make a film that I want and if it works emotionally for the audience and if it stays with them after the screening and means something for them. Awards or money have symbolic power.