Irish Film Institute -Warchild

Warchild

Director: Christian Wagner

Germany-Slovenia| 2006. Subtitled. Colour. Dolby Digital Stereo. 103 min.


A resolute Bosnian mother grows determined to find the daughter who was taken from her and given to German foster parents a decade earlier in director Christian Wagner’s powerful drama Warchild, which boasts a terrific central performance from Labina Mitevska and won the screenplay prize at this year’s Montreal World Film Festival. Mitevska plays the 30-year-old Senada, who lives in a village near Sarajevo and is still haunted by the changes in her life during her time in an interment camp during the Bosnian conflict.
Following a harrowing illegal border crossing to Ulm in Germany, Senada finds her missing daughter Kristina (Joelle Ludwig), who’s being raised by a well-to-do family. The film illustrates with incisive precision the dilemma facing those whose lives were ruptured by the Bosnian conflict. Wagner’s assured direction of a fully rounded script is supported by outstanding cinematography by veteran Thomas Mauch. But it is the haunted performance of Mitevska, previously seen in Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain, that lifts the story from affecting to engrossing. We are delighted that Director Christian Wagner will be present at this screening.

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