Sherbet
2019 · 18m · Serbia
Directed by Nikola Stojanović
Tones: dark, melancholic, provocative
Ena and Sale — both destructive and hungry for life — meet and try to interpret their feelings while pressured by the burdens of their past.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Two damaged people circling each other without resolution or redemption—it's almost aggressively uninterested in earning catharsis, which is refreshing until you realize the film has nothing underneath the pose.
Stojanović channels a Balkan melancholia that sits comfortably in the lineage of Kusturica and Gatlif, but the romantic framework feels slightly undercooked against the weight of the historical and personal debris it's trying to navigate.
There's a single moment—wordless, almost thrown away—where Sale's jaw tightens and you understand the entire architecture of his self-destruction; that economy of performance is what rescues this from its own solemnity.
Festivals
- Sarajevo Film Festival 2019, Heart of Sarajevo for Best Student Film
- Les Arcs Film Festival 2019, Best Short Film
- FilmFestival Cottbus 2019, Short Film Selection