Danish actress-turned-director Marijana Jankovic has presented her first feature length film, Home [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Marijana Jankovic
scheda film], in IFFR’s Big Screen Competition. We talked to her about her sensitive, multi-layered story about an immigrant family from former-Yugoslavia who moved to Denmark. She spoke about her approach, her experience as an actress and her wish to tell thus-far untold stories.

Cineuropa: Your short film Maja was based on your family’s story, and in it you play the role of your own mother. That must have been emotionally challenging for you. How did you cope with it? And was that one of the reasons you decided not to play your mother again in Home?
Marijana Jankovic: I thought: I know her best – I know how she breathes, how she moves. I could direct someone to play the part exactly as I would. And, honestly, there’s still a little sorrow in my heart that I didn’t do it. But this was my first feature film. It was a huge production between Denmark and Serbia, in two languages. I was putting everything together and directing a feature film for the first time. I realised I couldn’t do both. There were around 25 shooting days for the character of my mother – it would have been insane. So I decided I would play Maja when she’s old.

How did you find young Maja?
She was born and raised in Denmark. I come from Yugoslavia – for me it still exists - and I love that her parents are from former Yugoslavia: her father is an actor from Montenegro and her mother is an actress from Serbia. This mix felt very true to me. She’d auditioned for my short film, Maja, but she was too small back then. When we started casting for this film, I suddenly thought: call that little girl again. She’d grown, and it was the easiest decision in the whole process. She’s a true talent.

Her role is quite challenging. How did you prepare her for it?
When you’re working with children, everything goes through the parents. We had meetings, went to the playground together, and built trust. It was very important to me that she never felt burdened or traumatised. She was prepared for it at home, she had fun on set, and every day she asked: “Have we already finished?”

You must have siblings yourself, considering how palpably everyone’s feelings are portrayed – the parents, the daughter, the brothers. How did you develop this entire constellation?
The story with the brothers is true. My parents took me and left my brothers behind. It could have been the other way around. That’s just life. I believe I’ve always been very aware of other people’s feelings. As a child, I was taken out of my safety zone, and that made me observant, awake. That awareness is probably why I became an actress and why I can build these emotional constellations.

Regarding your work as an actress, looking at your filmography, I felt that stories like these hadn’t yet featured. Did that feed into your urge to tell this story yourself?
In the beginning of my career, people looked at my looks, not my talent. I was often cast as “the foreign girl”. I got tired of that. I looked for films with deeper storylines, but nobody was writing them. So at a certain point in time, I realised: I need to make them myself.

What kind of audience are you looking to reach?
I have three wishes in this respect. First, my parents’ generation – the “quiet generation” who never tell their story. I want them to feel seen. Second, people who don’t know any immigrants, so they can see that we’re not so different. And third, my own generation, so that they feel less alone with their trauma.

What was the biggest challenge while making this film?
The hardest part was convincing the industry that this story mattered. They didn’t know who this film was for. I had nothing to compare it to. I was lucky that there was a woman at the Danish Film Institute who understood my background and believed in me. The same goes for all the well-known actors who played along. They did it because they believed in the story.