Lidija Zelovic

In a juvenile delinquent center two girls find comfort in love for each other. Once one of them gets released, they don't know how to deal with this and both seek for a solution, with tragic consequences - A contemporary love story based on the motives of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

A film about a generation of four friends who grew up together in Sarajevo. They are the friends of filmmaker Lidija Zelovic-Goekjian, now living scattered across the world. What has happened to them over the past 13 years: how did they survive the war, how do they live now, how do they look back on their former lives, on Sarajevo, and on their old friends?

When Lidija Zelović fled the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the age of 22, she didn’t realize that she would henceforth be defined as a “refugee”. Nor that her life would then be spent shuttling between her birthplace and Amsterdam, between the past and the present, between being Lidija and being a foreigner.

Sarajevo born filmmaker revisits her most traumatic period in life. What happens when collective trauma enters a family? A story told from the personal point of view of the filmmaker who experienced the war in many layers: intimate, family related, as a mother and a daughter, as a professional, as a world citizen who tries to understand odds of nationalism and hatred. Is there any wisdom gained from what one has observed and encountered? Lidija’s film confronts us with challenging questions. What is left of each of us once we got displaced? What happens to a family long after a war is over? Can one ensure that their children don’t have to carry their burden? In this very personal documentary, the director makes an inner journey through her memories, places and people she loves as she tries to leave her past behind her.