Belgrade, 1993. Serbia is at war, people are suffering on account of sanctions and inflation, but everyone is doing what they can. Mother Marijana is holding the family together. It is Minja’s eighth birthday. Instead of a cocker spaniel of her own, there’s the neighbour’s three-legged dog to play with, and the cake has been made with margarine instead of butter. In the living room, she and her classmates romp happily while the adults congregate in the kitchen. There are heated discussions about who is to blame for the collapse of Yugoslavia, and they all agree that it doesn’t take more than a bit of sperm to become a mother. A boozy evening of unrestrained smoking, flirting and drinking takes its course, the family portrait becoming a society in miniature.
"I developed the screenplay from my memories of these kinds of birthday parties, the details that shape the atmosphere. The nostalgia for the nineties. The characters are based on my parents and friends. Sometimes you can’t tell what went wrong – is it the marriage, the lack of communication, or is it the whole country? The idea was to simultaneously deal with my childhood and with my adult life, by trapping them inside one house and one day." (Milica Tomović)
Milica Tomović
Milica Tomović (1986) is a Serbian director. In 2011, she graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University of Arts in Belgrade with the anthology film Oktobar. Her second short film, Tranzicija, premiered in Locarno, and went on to screen at Belgrade’s documentary and short film festivals, where it won Best Short Film. It also won the Best Short Film Award in Sarajevo. Celts is her debut feature film.