Sabina Vajrača
Directing
Biography
Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sabina Vajraca immigrated to the U.S. as a war refugee in 1994. A natural storyteller, she started working in theatre as a teenager, eventually getting her B.F.A. in Theatre Directing and Stage Management. After graduation she worked in NYC, focusing on devised theatre and movement/experimental approach to Shakespeare and other Classics. Her first film, the critically-acclaimed feature documentary "Back to Bosnia," premiered at the 2005 AFI Fest and screened at over 30 festivals worldwide, winning Director's Choice at the Crossroads Film Festival. Since then, she wrote, directed, and produced numerous narrative shorts, commercials for ESPN and IFP, a music video for Nouvelle Vague's "Bela Lugosi's Dead," and wrote a number of award-winning feature and short screenplays. Sabina is the Annenberg Scholar, a Student BAFTA and Oscars nominee, a member of Film Fatales, Women in Film, WIMPS, and Lincoln Center's Directors Lab, and an alumna of the Ryan Murphy Half Directing Mentorship, the Nantucket Screenwriters Colony, and the Stowe Story Labs, where she won the Tangerine Fellowship. She holds an M.F.A. in Film and TV Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Known For
In 1936 Harlem, the first all-Black cast to perform Shakespeare's 'Macbeth', directed by a young and arrogant Orson Welles, battles to make it to opening night.
Voodoo Macbeth
Desperate to have children, Kate has been undergoing excessive infertility treatments, only to discover Bill has been hiding a secret that may change everything.
Lost Children: Kate & Bill
A young Bosnian woman confronts her wartime rapist in modern-day NYC.
Emina
When Bruce checks into a hotel suite on his trip to New York City he expects to catch up on some sleep and perhaps catch a Broadway show or two between his business meetings. What he gets instead is Olga.
Smoking Kills
When an emotionally abusive father reneges on a lifelong promise, a determined millennial is forced to choose between fighting for her relationship with her father or her freedom. 'Spoiled Milk' is about what it means to have an expiration date as a daughter and the invisible scars of emotional abuse.
Spoiled Milk
Filmmaker Sabina Vajraca documents her Bosnian Muslim family's return to their home of Banja Luka, Bosnia, to recover their stolen belongings many years after being forced to flee to the United States. In Bosnia, they witness the devastation of the city, visit war crimes sites, and confront the family that has been living in their former apartment -- with all their furnishings -- for a decade.
Back to Bosnia
In the middle of the Bosnian War, a 15-year-old math wiz is given a way out of the bloodshed when his math club gets an invitation to compete at the International Math Olympiad in Canada.
Variables
Anne is determined to find a place to call home, but she soon discovers that New York City's realty market is satiated with sleazy brokers, strange roommates and scary dwellings. Even the perfect place she eventually finds has a secret of its own.
Apparition
During WWII in Nazi-occupied Bosnia, a Muslim woman risks everything to save her Jewish friends. 50 years later the tables have turned. Inspired by a true story.
Sevap/Mitzvah
When a talented yet struggling actress has an uneasy encounter with one of Hollywood's top directors at the biggest audition of her career, she has to make a decision of whether to take the role or walk away from her dream.
Callback
It depicts the final moments of a mother whose child is a victim of a pedophile. Unable to come to terms with the fact that the perpetrator will be free again, she confronts the man who has destroyed her entire world in an ultimate attempt to resist.