Film Synopsis

In her stunning debut feature, writer/director Jasmila Žbani explores the painful long-term effects of war on a Bosnian woman and her daughter. Esma is a single mother who lives with her 12-year-old daughter, Sara, in the Grbavica district of Sarajevo, a neighborhood once used as an internment camp during the Yugoslav wars. Unable to get by on government aid, Esma works two jobs to make ends meet. When Sara wants to go on a school trip, questions arise about her father, who is supposed to have died as a war martyr. Gradually, Sara comes to realize that her mother has never told her the truth about the war years, and the truth threatens to tear them apart.