Serbian filmmaker Miroslav Terzi\u0107 (\u201cStitches\u201d) is wrapping post-production on his third feature, \u201cWho Are We,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Terzi\u0107\u2019s latest follows a group of\u00a0high 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.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n 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\u2019s death. Things take a dark turn, however, when Zoza becomes the new target of the bullies\u2019 ire, trapping the young teen in a recurring cycle of violence.<\/p>\n Speaking to\u00a0Variety\u00a0in Sarajevo,\u00a0Terzi\u0107 said that while \u201cWho Are We\u201d is emblematic of an experience encountered by many during childhood, \u201cthe story goes beyond the boundaries of a classroom or the frame of peer violence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs we all witness daily, we live in a profoundly violent society,\u201d the director said. \u201cWhat happens to our children is not an isolated phenomenon \u2014 it is a reflection of the reality we all share.\u201d<\/p>\n Working off a script that he co-wrote with Vladimir Arsenijevi\u0107 and Bojan Vuleti\u0107, Terzi\u0107 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\u2019s death, the entire class went on a school trip as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n \u201cThat 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,\u201d said Terzi\u0107. 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 \u201cthe mechanism of violence itself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile [\u2018Who Are We\u2019] is the story of a small group, it could just as easily be applied to society at large, and even to the world today,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Terzi\u0107 is the director of \u201cRedemption Street\u201d (2012), which participated in more than 40 film festivals globally and scooped awards including best debut at Cottbus, and \u201cStitches,\u201d which premiered in the Berlin Film Festival\u2019s Panorama strand in 2019, where it won the European Film Award and the Audience Award.\u00a0Variety\u2019s Jessica Kiang described the film<\/a> as an \u201celegant hybrid of true-story expos\u00e9 and slow-moving arthouse thriller\u201d that \u201cdelivers an unusually thoughtful, psychologically compelling character study.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho Are We\u201d is produced by Sne\u017eana van Houwelingen and Branislav Trifunovi\u0107, 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).<\/p>\n At Thursday\u2019s CineLink Industry Days award ceremony in Sarajevo, the film won the newly established HBO Award, which includes a prize of \u20ac30,000 ($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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a great honor that HBO has recognized our film and provided us with support to complete it,\u201d said van Houwelingen and Trifunovi\u0107. \u201cThis award comes at a crucial moment, and we believe it will help \u2018Who Are We\u2019 reach audiences worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n The duo added that they\u2019re currently looking for \u201cthe right international sales partner\u201d to help the film take the next step on that journey.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, it\u2019s not only about finding a sales company, but about finding the best possible match for the film \u2014 someone who will understand its sensitivity, its artistic and social relevance, and who will be committed to bringing it to audiences worldwide,\u201d they said. \u201cWe strongly believe that [\u2018Who Are We\u2019] has strong potential to resonate internationally, and we want to work with a partner who shares that vision.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 15 \u2013 22.<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Serbian filmmaker Miroslav Terzi\u0107 (\u201cStitches\u201d) is wrapping post-production on his third feature, \u201cWho Are We,\u201d 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. Terzi\u0107\u2019s latest follows a group of\u00a0high school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1974584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[352371,352372,352376,345852,352375,33132,352373,352374],"class_list":["post-1974583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-cycle-of-violence","tag-peer-violence","tag-post-production","tag-sarajevo-film-festival","tag-serbian-filmmaker-miroslav-terzic","tag-variety","tag-works-in-progress","tag-zoza"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Serbian-Drama-\u2018Who-Are-We-Tackles-Bullying-and-Peer-Violence.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1974584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}