Promised Spaces

Landscapes of Resistance traces a journey through the memories of antifascist fighter Sonja (97), the first Partisan woman in Serbia, who was also one of the leaders of the Resistance movement at Auschwitz. We make her story travel through time towards the bodies of the new generation of antifascists, bespeaking that it is always possible to think and practice resistance.

Marko spends time in the abandoned apartment of his childhood in Belgrade. Traces of the past are being drawn and memories, both idyllic and traumatic, are combined. The family VHS archive shows his universe during 1998 and 1999: gatherings, pets, videogames, and moments of uncertainty reveal a common life embraced by an historical event.

An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple's relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel not only their recent engagement but their lives.

Heidi heads to the Heidelberg Christmas market to sell her hand-painted ornaments. While there, she falls for a local artisan who helps her reconnect with her lost heritage.

Andrej lives in a small industrial coastal town. The only escape from his bleak everyday reality is his affection for his friend Ana, which he is unable to express. His situation suddenly changes as various events lead him to a misfortune final encounter with her. The movie is set in the nineties, and through Andrejs story, it pays homage to a lost generation of children and youth growing up during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia.

After a 13-year-old student disappears without a trace for a week and suddenly reappears, his mother and teachers are confronted with existential questions that change their whole view of life.

Abandoned at birth in the Greek mountains on a stormy night, Jon is taken in and adopted, without having known his father or mother. As a young man, he meets Iro, a warden in the prison where he is incarcerated after a deadly tragic accident. She seems to seek out his presence, takes care of him, records music for him. Jon’s eyesight begins to fail... From then on, for every loss he suffers, he will gain something in return. Thus, in spite of going blind, he will live his life more fully than ever.

It’s like almost all is lost. Yet still they are here – abandoned bungalows, an artificial lake, dirty plastic bottles, lost donkeys and stray dogs, draining pipes running over fields of salt, deserted factories, statues of revolutionaries, concrete playgrounds covered with weeds, rotten fruit, folded T-shirts, pop songs, decades of forgetting, a single room with a blue tent inside. And it felt like a kiss.

After leaving the ship on which she works, Sanja finds herself stranded, with nowhere to go but home. The shipyard has filed for bankruptcy, leaving many workers out of work. A storm comes; one life is lost. Luka is waiting for the night in the woods. The night when everything could change.

It’s summer and the streets are almost empty in a small town, once the centre of the metalworking industry in former Yugoslavia. People gather at the public swimming pool. Two friends are saying goodbye.

The first attempts to map the Mississippi Delta date back to the early 18th century. An uncontrollable, fragile and shifting environment in itself, it has since been constantly transformed by the exploitation of its resources. Navigating between times and spaces, the real and the speculative, Sweat gradually immerses us between the lines of the maps, in the fluctuating and insubordinate part of this territory, by following the living beings that inhabit it.

In 19th-century Montenegro, the free mountain territories are surrounded by Turkish forces, isolated from the West and steeped in conservatism, patriarchy, and superstition. Morlak, a poet and bishop inspired by the historical figure Petar II Petrović Njegoš, leads his tribe in resisting the invaders. Gravely ill, he is sent to southern Italy in search of a cure. The journey takes him to a house in Naples, a city that contrasts sharply with his homeland’s isolated hills. As Morlak contemplates his existence, his loyal servant Djuko struggles with profound nostalgia, driven by the fear of his master’s death in a foreign land.

Branko dwells on the fringes of Belgrade society. Isolated and unable to sleep, he speaks to no-one. His only obsession seems to be his younger brother, whose muddy shoes, bloodstained sheets, and murky whereabouts unsettle him. As paranoia sets in, Branko realises his brother isn't the strange one. He is.

Rio, an introverted young man, tries to make a living for himself by commiting petty theft in restaurants and resorts around the Croatian coast. His life, however, drastically changes when Andrea, a young Serbian part-time worker, enters his life, with the two becoming partners in crime, planning a major heist of two wealthy women staying at the hotel Andrea works at.

Sava Centar is a congress space built in 1978 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, whose architecture reflects an idea of the future. Made to host thousands, it now stands almost abandoned. The maintenance workers shoulder the duty of restoring the space.

74-year-old dancer Sonja Vukićević moves through socialist-modernist spaces, her body echoing Yugoslavia's last mass performance.