Serbian filmmaker Miroslav Terzić (“Stitches”) is wrapping post-production on his third feature, “Who Are We,” which explores the world of teenagers and the dynamics of peer violence. The film took home the top prize Thursday among Works in Progress in the industry strand of the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Terzić’s latest follows a group of high school students whose trip to Bulgaria is derailed when their bus breaks down, forcing them to spend the night in a remote, dilapidated hotel on the edge of the mountains. Beneath the surface, the atmosphere is tense: one of the students, Zoza, is haunted by the recent suicide of his best friend, Andrija.
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While the other students carry on as if nothing happened, Zoza accuses both his classmates and teachers of ignoring the bullying that led to his friend’s death. Things take a dark turn, however, when Zoza becomes the new target of the bullies’ ire, trapping the young teen in a recurring cycle of violence.
Speaking to Variety in Sarajevo, Terzić said that while “Who Are We” is emblematic of an experience encountered by many during childhood, “the story goes beyond the boundaries of a classroom or the frame of peer violence.”
“As we all witness daily, we live in a profoundly violent society,” the director said. “What happens to our children is not an isolated phenomenon — it is a reflection of the reality we all share.”
Working off a script that he co-wrote with Vladimir Arsenijević and Bojan Vuletić, Terzić said he was inspired by the story of a mother whose son had taken his own life after being bullied and harassed by his classmates for nearly two years. In an interview, the mother expressed her shock and disbelief at the fact that just two weeks after her son’s death, the entire class went on a school trip as if nothing had happened.
“That detail stayed with me, and over time it became even more significant when placed against the backdrop of many tragic events that have happened in Serbia in recent years,” said Terzić. Pointing to a notorious 2023 massacre at a Belgrade elementary school, where a seventh-grade student opened fire, killing 10 children and a school guard, the director said that his main concern is “the mechanism of violence itself.”
“While [‘Who Are We’] is the story of a small group, it could just as easily be applied to society at large, and even to the world today,” he said. “We live in a time when violence is everywhere: in newspapers, on television, in films, on the internet. It seems as though we have grown indifferent to it, stripped of emotion and empathy. We have become different people, leaving our children a world that has never been as violent as it is now.”
Terzić is the director of “Redemption Street” (2012), which participated in more than 40 film festivals globally and scooped awards including best debut at Cottbus, and “Stitches,” which premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand in 2019, where it won the European Film Award and the Audience Award. Variety’s Jessica Kiang described the film as an “elegant hybrid of true-story exposé and slow-moving arthouse thriller” that “delivers an unusually thoughtful, psychologically compelling character study.”
“Who Are We” is produced by Snežana van Houwelingen and Branislav Trifunović, with the support of Film Center Serbia, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia, the Luxembourg Film Fund, the MIC Italian Ministry of Culture, the Bulgarian National Film Center, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre and MEDIA Creative Europe. It is a co-production between This and That Productions (Serbia), Paul Thiltges Distribution (Luxembourg), Nightswim (Italy), Invictus (Bulgaria) and Kinorama (Croatia).
At Thursday’s CineLink Industry Days award ceremony in Sarajevo, the film won the newly established HBO Award, which includes a prize of €30,000 ($34,800), along with a direct license for broadcasting in 15 HBO territories in Central and Southeast Europe, ensuring guaranteed distribution upon completion of the film.
“It is a great honor that HBO has recognized our film and provided us with support to complete it,” said van Houwelingen and Trifunović. “This award comes at a crucial moment, and we believe it will help ‘Who Are We’ reach audiences worldwide.”
The duo added that they’re currently looking for “the right international sales partner” to help the film take the next step on that journey.
“For us, it’s not only about finding a sales company, but about finding the best possible match for the film — someone who will understand its sensitivity, its artistic and social relevance, and who will be committed to bringing it to audiences worldwide,” they said. “We strongly believe that [‘Who Are We’] has strong potential to resonate internationally, and we want to work with a partner who shares that vision.”
The Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 15 – 22.
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