The scars of war last long after the guns stop firing, and Serbian filmmaker Dušan Milić shows just how long it lasts in his new film “Darkling,” Serbia’s entry into the race for the Best International Film Oscar. It was on display this month as part of TheWrap’s Screening series.
Set in Kosovo in 1999, “Darkling” follows a family living in the region after the conclusion of the bloody war between Yugoslavia and Albanian rebels. NATO-led forces known as KFOR now occupy the region and are keeping the peace, but only during the day.
At night, a girl named Milica barricades the doors and windows of her home with her mother and grandfather, fearful of the dangers they believe lurk outside their home, even as KFOR soldiers dismiss it as her imagination. . It is unclear if she is real or not, but the trauma of the war has left deep emotional scars on Milica and her family, as the young woman tells her story in a letter to the world.
In a Q&A with TheWrap’s Joe McGovern after the screening, Milić said the story was based on a real letter written by an 11-year-old girl and read to the United Nations about the horrors she faced living in Kosovo in that moment. Although the letter was close to his heart because of his Serbian heritage, Milic also recognized the universality of this suffering inflicted on countless children over the centuries, whether they be Jewish children fleeing the Holocaust or the Ukrainian children fleeing the Holocaust today. invasion of Russia.
“This film was released just two days before the war in Ukraine started,” he said. “But I’ve been developing this movie for a long time and I think all wars are the same. There are people who suffer in those wars, and for me it’s always about that suffering, so I wanted to tell a story about a lost childhood, about a girl who one day could have been the next Marie Curie but didn’t get the chance to be that one. person”.
Watch the full interview with Dušan Milic here.