Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams takes viewers into another homeland on the horizon of far flung places depicted in recent motion pictures that paint a moving, and usually disturbing, portrait of life in the aftermath of war. These include, Hotel Rwanda, Bamako, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the documentaries Iraq in Fragments and Screamers, and a seldom seen documentary short (on the festival circuit), Somebody’s Child: The Redemption of Rwanda. 

Here, we enter the lives of a busy single mother, Esma (Mirjana Karanovic) and her 12-year-old daughter Sara (Luna Mijovic). They live in the Grbavica neighborhood of Sarajevo. Esma attends sessions at a women’s center, where somber faces and animated hands tell stories (that need no English translation) of loss and struggle. Esma seems apart from the others, though there. In the end each woman receives a small amount of money before leaving. This stipend helps but not much. Esma takes a job as a cocktail waitress to supplement her income.  

Daughter Sara is a young student with an obvious attitude. There is a school trip planned, and Sara has to come up with the money to participate, and bring a certificate of death for her father, so that she can get a discount on the price of the trip. Esma has told Sara that her father was a “shaheed,” a martyr, killed in the war. His body has not been found, Esma claims, and that’s why she can’t get the certificate issued. The other students begin to doubt Sara’s story and they tease her. Her only friend is Samir (Kenan Catic), a boy that she spends time with, smoking and roaming the ruins of buildings destroyed in the war. 

The supporting cast of popular international actors includes Leon Lucev, as Pelda, a handsome fellow nightclub employee who likes Esma and wants to help her. Esma’s fun-loving friend Sabina (Jasna Beri) provides humorous relief (and occasional money) to brighten her outlook. 

Esma tries desperately to raise the money for Sara. The two argue viciously and a long-held family secret is revealed. Sara rages in rebellion. We see Esma now as part of the collage of courageous women, with bodies resting against each other, hands intertwined, and bonded against a common enemy. There is a mother and daughter reconciliation, much as the filmmaker sees the need for the same in the greater sense.

This is the first feature directed by Jasmila Zbanic, who also wrote the screenplay. Grbavica was an official entry from Bosnia and Herzegovina for Academy Award consideration for Best Foreign Film.  It is a personal experience of film making for Zbanic. She grew up very near the front lines of the war in Bosnia.  

Jasmila Zbanic says that Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams, “Is about love that is not pure, because it has been mixed with hate, disgust, trauma and despair.” She goes on to say it is “…about victims. About truth ¾ a cosmic power necessary to progress.” Twenty thousand women were systematically raped in Bosnia, as part of a war strategy to destroy an ethnic group.  

There is sadness to this film, certainly. Ultimately, there is hope as well, and the need for filmmakers to tell these stories, and for audiences to embrace the characters and take them to heart.