Petrunya stands in an empty swimming pool. A hardcore punk song with the lyrics “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!“ blasts out of the soundtrack. A nice setting of the tone. Petrunya is fed up: with her life, Macedonia, the fact that shes‘s in her early 30s and an unemployed historian, and especially with her mother. She has arranged a job interview for her again, though it‘s clear from the get-go it won‘t amount to anything because Petrunya is too old, too fat, too unpolished, too whatever. The conversation isn‘t just a disaster, a guy fondles her only to then say “I wouldn‘t even fuck you!“ On the way home Petrunya stumbles upon a procession and is pushed to the river. Young men are preparing to dive into the ice cold water to get a cross that the priest threw from the bridge. Petrunya sees it drift by and jumps. The fact that a woman has disrupted the male ritual and has fished out the cross is the cause of a riot that keeps on growing. The press reports. The police steps in and takes Petrunya to the station to be interrogated. She is held there for hours with no legal grounds while the priest and police chief fiddle about in the back room and reporter Slavica shivers outside as a mob gathers. The incident is an absurd trifle, but the completely inappropriate reactions tell a different story. Director Teona Strugar Mitevska‘s feminist farce has a good sense for absurdity and very dry humor. At the center, solid as a rock, is Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva), who doesn‘t exactly know why she grabbed the cross but isn‘t willing to give it back. Just because. The Berlinale competition film pokes at the relationship between religion and democracy in Macedonia and exposes buckets full of toxic masculinity.

Hendrike Bake (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy