SAJBIJA
Carmen Baltzar
Finland
A pair of young Roma sisters sell toys at a tourist beach and interact with a colorful cast of sunbathers, unaware of impending danger.
SYNOPSIS
On a hot summer’s day, Romani sisters Nadia (8) and Samara (12) roam around a tourist beach selling toys. They come across a varied cast of sunbathers, each engaged in their own drama and holiday routines. As the day is coming to an end, Nadia wanders off into the water where a big wave crashes over her. Samara runs in to save her but is taken by the waves as well. The retrieval of their lifeless bodies causes little disturbance around them. As they lie under beach blankets waiting to be picked up, life on the beach goes on as before.
INTENTION
During the pandemic, I researched Roma deaths in Europe and came across the story of two sisters who drowned on a beach near Naples in unclear circumstances. After their bodies were retrieved from the water and they were laid down on the beach, many beachgoers around them showed little awareness of their presence, and continued their day as normal. The event captures Europeans’ total indifference towards the lives of Roma.
The image of the girls’ bodies lying on the beach amidst unconcerned sunbathers stayed with me, and functioned as a starting point for this script. Other than that, the story is entirely fictionalised. It takes place on an imaginary pan-European touristic beach.
While the girls make their way through the beach, a fluid camera follows them, giving the sense of one take. The beach is oppressive in its intensity, and the viewer has no escape. The feeling of entrapment is heightened as the visual and auditory language stays the same when the waves swallow the girls and as their bodies lie under blankets. The film ends at the camp the girls come from: we briefly witness life as it unravels there, but the girls are absent.
DIRECTOR
Carmen Baltzar
Carmen Baltzar is a Finnish writer-filmmaker based in Lisbon. She graduated with an MA in Documentary Film from University College London. She writes short stories, essays, and columns, and recently co-edited a collection of lyrical essays on the theme of death. She is currently working on her first novel and moving towards fictional storytelling in her filmmaking.
PRODUCER
Danai Anagnostou
Danai Anagnostou is a producer for film and artist moving images, and a researcher in production studies. She co-founded Kenno Filmi, a production company that hosts international filmmakers, researchers, and artists. Her work is shaped through the interdisciplinary and intersectional practices that stem from the collaborative aspects of filmmaking.
Genre
Drama
Length
15 min
Language
Romanes, Multiple
Shooting location
to be defined
Production company
Kenno Filmi Osk (Finland)
Estimated budget
€110.000
Secured funding
Finnish Film Foundation (Scriptwriting) - €3.800, Kenno Filmi Osk - €2.000
Looking for
Coproducers, Post-Production, Sales, Distribution