FilmHouse Sarajevo

A microcosm of the fathomless suffering that remains more than 16 years since the siege of Sarajevo ended, writer-director Aida Begic’s follow-up to her 2008 Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize-winning debut Snow tells the story of two orphaned siblings struggling in a transitional society where only the fittest survive.

This is a story about pain, search for meaning in life and friendship of orphaned. Syrian boys - Isa, Ahmed and Muataz - who live a difficult life as refugees in the magical, mythical Turkish city of Sanliurfa. In their search for recovery from traumatic past, the children will cross the path from destructiveness and hostility to meaningfulness and love. By finding friends in each other, the boys will find their inner peace.

Merjem-Meri, an unambitious, 30-year-old homemaker and mother to 8-year-old girl Mila, moves back to her parental home after 10 years of marriage. Soon after, Meri realizes she is stuck in a circle of provincial rules and expectations and a complex relationship with her ambitious mother and spoiled younger brother. Her hope to get the custody of her daughter wanes from day to day because she has no chance of finding a permanent job. The only thing that makes her happy, but also makes everyone else look down on her, is participation in an audition for a film role in her neighborhood.