North American Premiere
At the turn of the 20th century, a Chilean woman shows up in a remote Croatian community of shepherds, claiming to be the widow of the family’s eldest son who moved away years ago in search of a more prosperous life abroad. While her appearance is at first exciting, her otherness quickly sows seeds of discord among the clan, whose mistrust towards anything and anyone different brings deeply buried tensions to a boil.
Manuela Martelli and Ana Marija Veselčić are riveting in their meaty, defiant turns as two outcasts who form an unlikely bond in the face of social rejection, which earned the two actors a joint award for Best Performance at this year’s Locarno Film Festival. Evoking the work of cinema auteurs like Jane Campion, this wickedly moody, beautifully lensed feminist period piece is as formally accomplished as it is daring in its unique fusion of genre and ethnographic motifs.
Best Performance, Locarno 2025
Oct 5 & 6: Q&A
Supported by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Manuela Martelli, Ana Marija Veselčić, Filip Đurić, Mauro Ercegović Gracin, Nikša Butijer
Croatia/Italy/Romania/
Greece/France/Slovenia
2025
In Croatian and Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Producer
Ankica Jurić Tilić
Screenwriter
Hana Jušić
Cinematography
Jana Plećaš
Editor
Jan Klemsche
Production Design
Laura Boni
Original Music
Stavros Evangelou, Iris Asimakopoulou, Vasilis Chontos
Hana Jušić
Hana Jusic, born 1983 in Šibenik, Croatia, obtained her master’s degree in film and TV directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. She wrote and directed several short films prior to her feature film debut, Quit Staring at My Plate (2016), a Croatian–Danish co-production that won more than 30 awards including Best Director at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Grand Prix at the Crossing Europe festival in Linz, and Best Feature Film at Valladolid, among others. Jusic’s screenwriting credits include two feature films and the TV series The Last Socialist Artefact (2021), which she co-wrote.
Filmography: Transmania (2016)
Photo by Glorija Lizde
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
All the Lovers in the Night
A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.
Clarissa
Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa brings Mrs. Dalloway to present-day Lagos, with Sophie Okonedo playing the titular society hostess opposite David Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri, and India Amarteifio in a Nigerian vision of class, privilege, and past lives.
Image: © Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
Opening Gala: The Debut
VIFF is honoured to open the festival with this special by-invitation screening of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut. When meek Mona (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a musical, she fully inhabits her character, but grows increasingly untethered from reality.
Árru
Set against the mountains and fjords of northern Norway, Árru follows reindeer herder Maia as a proposed copper mine threatens her Sámi community, forcing her to fight to protect both her community and the land that sustains it.
The Beloved
When Esteban Martínez, an acclaimed director with violent tendences, invites his estranged daughter to star in his latest project, the stage is set for a familial reconnection. But as tensions flare, questions about his intentions rise to the surface.
MODES 1
Archive and the land reveal other ways of seeing, ensuring that what is meant to endure cannot be erased.