80min | Serbia/Republika Srpska/Bosnia and Herzegovina| 2024
Two teenage sisters record their daily lives on a home camera, overwriting older recordings that periodically appear on tape. Their father is soon mobilized. Before he leaves, he asks them to film something nice for him. Days go by, they film nature, night sky during bombing raids and tease Tijana, their youngest sister. Things change when a mysterious boy and his shy baby sister arrive from Belgrade and move in the first neighbor’s house. New friendships, first kisses and first disappointments take over the fear of bombs.
Original Title 78 dana Year of production 2024 Length 80' CountrySerbia/Republika Srpska/Bosnia and Herzegovina Shooting FormatHi8 Aspect Ratio 4:3 Dialogue Serbian Director Emilija Gasic Producers Andrijana Sofranis Sucur, Milos Ivanovic Production Company Set Sail Films Co-production Neoart (BiH/RS) Screenwriter Emilija Gasic CinematographerInes Gowland Editor Jovana Filipovic Production DesignerMaja Duricic Costume Designer Senka Radivojevic Sound Designer Dora Filipovic Cast Viktorija Vasiljevic, Milica Gicic, Tamara Gajovic, Pavle Cemerikic, Masa Cirovic, Jelena Djokic, Goran Bogdan
Website Set Sail Films Director's Statement A few years ago, I digitized all of my family’s home video tapes from the 1990s. While going through the footage in March of 2020, I stumbled upon a tape that I completely erased from my memory. It was a video of a normal day, my family spending time together but with some unusual serious undertone. The evocative footage immediately transported me back in time when my generation’s childhood was in quarantine. I was both excited and upset that I made an anonymous questionnaire about the bombing with a desire to see how others remembered it. Over two hundred people shared their memories: absence of school, sound of airplanes, the echo of the creepy air raid siren, electricity restrictions, fear for the mobilized fathers, shelters, satirical songs, first loves, losses. Then I wondered, what if all this was on one Hi8 tape? A tape that testifies to one time and space through the coming of age of three sisters who record everything and overwrite constantly. “78 Days” was shot entirely as found footage, in 4:3 aspect ratio, from the protagonists’ perspective which illustrates the atmosphere and spontaneity of the home video aesthetics and authenticity of the time period.
