Jas sum od Titov Veles

One of the best films this year, amazing! I have just seen it in Berlin, very powerful. Good story, excellent acting, I especially liked the youngest sister's performance. The film made me think, I saw in in the first day of the Berlinale, and still stays with me. The director's vision I found most original, poetic and the story is beautifully told. I believe a new Balkan cinema is on the rise and i expect a lot from the region. This film has shown another side of what we usually expect and see from the Balkans, it does not use the usual clichés and provides the spectator with an amazing experience and a ride to remember. if you have a chance go and see this film!

I see this film as a research into purity of the form. I endured, I cried, I loved and now worship the experience into the lives of these three sisters: lost in the middle of nowhere, in a place that seizes to exist. The final message is painful, you leave the cinema with a ball into your stomach, you are left speechless and drained, and you hate even more the difficult world we leave in. But then, a day after the film is still with you, and then you start to process and understand the beauty and the meaning the film left you with. I am sick and tired of instant experiences, instant highs and pleasures. Content makes us what we are, and is content that films should offer us. Loved the film!

I have mixed feelings about this film. While I was watching it, I didn't like it. Now I am thinking that maybe I have few objective reasons to consider it poor. The author seems to achieve her goals well.

My main regret was that the theme is shared with many recent Balkan films: yet another feature hammering on about decay of the society, the general failure of human lives here, the inadequacy of people to forge their destinies. This squalid perception of the present day seems to be spread in all (slavic) countries on the Balkans. I get enough of it in the every day conversations, I'd prefer if not all our film productions focused on it too.

This particular film is about three sisters in their 20s, left in their poor town Veles to take care of each other after their father had died years ago. Each is looking to find a future for herself in a different way. However, each of the ways involves escaping from the current reality. The oldest is looking for a marriage at any cost, the pretty - to emigrate to rich Greece, at any cost, the mute who is the protagonist escapes in her dreams (but she suffers most).

These three sisters are little mirrors of the Balkan people, thoroughly unhappy with our present situations, thoroughly feeling helpless and trampled on. The other focus of the film is about the patriarchal bringing up still characteristic for that generation, and how it shapes the woman to be quite vulnerable.

I suspect it is a success for the film-makers, that the managed to portray the lovely city of Veles as having such a gloomy atmosphere. Similarly, the sisters live in a hundred years old house that instead of charming feels rather depressing. The protracted unfolding of the story is also intentional to put us in even lower mood. The only light comes from the the lyrical character of the mute youngest sister, who is our story-teller.