Directors Mahde Hasan and Nikola Ležaić present their visually striking new films in world premieres as part of today’s Proxima Competition. Hasan’s Sand City explores the chaotic sprawl of the megalopolis of Dhaka, while Ležaić’s How Come It's All Green Out Here? unfolds in a Dalmatian village seemingly frozen in time. Both films will screen as usual at the Karlovy Vary Theatre, Sand City at 4 p.m. and How Come It’s All Green Out Here? at 7 p.m.
Sand City offers a surprisingly imaginative and intimate perspective on the busy urban life. It observes the hectic world through ordinary, seemingly imperceptible details, with sand serving as a defining visual and metaphorical motif. The film’s fragmented narrative and form reveal a raw beauty in imperfection. It’s precisely this visual originality and unconventional approach to depicting fractured human destinies that earned it an award at Locarno’s Open Doors. On the restless canvas of Bangladeshi society, director Mahde Hasan paints a metaphorical microcosm that draws viewers in by giving more weight to the inner world than the outer.
Nikola Ležaić’s How Come It's All Green Out Here? also turns inward towards the inner world of its characters. Its protagonist, a film director caught in the routines of advertising industry, is awaiting the birth of his child with his pregnant wife. As he reunites with his extended family to bury his grandmother’s remains, the visit awakens in him a symbolic return to his roots. The immersive experience is set in a remote village, seemingly unchanged by time. It gradually shifts from personal feelings to a shared space shaped by post-Yugoslavian society, marked by variability of memories and unreliability of recollection.
In his second feature film, Ležaić draws from his own life. He, too, works in advertising and music video direction and experienced personal loss during the pandemic. This lends his writing a raw authenticity, interwoven with imaginative elements.
