PRODUCTION Bosnia and Herzegovina / Slovenia / Croatia / Germany / Serbia

Bosnia takes Men Don't Cry to the Karlovy Vary Competition

23/06/2017 - Alen Drljević's first film features an all-star Balkan male acting team including Leon Lučev, Boris Isaković and Emir Hadžihafizbegović

Men Don't Cry by Alen Drljević

Men Don't Cry tells the story of a psychodrama workshop, set fully in a hotel in the Bosnian mountains. A group of war-scarred veterans from different sides in the Yugoslavian conflict are brought together by a peace group to share their wartime experiences, and to try to establish a degree of trust and faith between them. Emotions are highly charged as old enmities and hostilities emerge, but the participants gradually learn to overcome their divisions and achieve a kind of understanding and respect for each other, or at least a tolerance, despite all the bloodshed that has flowed between them in the past.

Drljević, who co-wrote the script with Zoran Solomun (For Those Who Can Tell No Tales [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), broke out internationally with the 2005 EFA-nominated short Paycheck and entered the IDFA's Top Ten Movies That Matter with Carnival in 2006.

Men Don't Cry was shot by Bosnia's Erol Zubčević (Death in Sarajevo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Danis Tanovic
film profile], A Good Wife) and edited by Croatia's Vladimir Gojun (Houston, We Have a Problem! [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Žiga Virc
film profile]). It was produced by Jasmila Žbanić and Damir Ibrahimović for Bosnia's Deblokada, and co-produced by Slovenia's Iridium Film, Croatia's Produkcija Živa, Germany's Manderlay Film and Serbia's This & That Production, with the participation of ZDF/Arte and Bosnia's national broadcaster, Federal TV.