WHEN THE PHONE RANG
​by Iva Radivojević​

73min | Serbia/USA | 2024

Through an intimate reconstruction of an important phone call, When The Phone Rang investigates dislocation and the nature of remembering.
In the protagonist’s eleven year old mind the phone call erases her entire country, history and identity.

Original Title Kada je zazvonio telefon
​Year of production 2024
Length 73'
Country Serbia/USA
Shooting Format 2K
Aspect Ratio 1,66:1
Dialogue ​Serbian/English
​
Director Iva Radivojević
Production Set Sail Films, Ivaasks Films in association with Picture Palace Pictures
Producers Andrijana Sofranis Sucur, Marija Stojnić, Madeleine Molyneaux, Iva Radivojević
Writer Iva Radivojević
Cinematographer Martin DiCicco
Editor Iva Radivojević
Music Iva Radivojević​
Sound Design & Mix  Leandros Ntounis (I Heard Voices - Athens, Greece)
Camera Assistant and Loader Bojan Durisić
Gaffer Viktor Minić
16mm Film Lab Processing NFI
Sound Recordist Bojan Palikuća
Color Dimitris Karteris - Athens, Greece
Mastering / DCP Chris Karteris - Athens, Greece
Cast Natalija Ilinčić, Srna Vasić, Vasilije Zečević, Danica Maksimović, Anton Augustinov, Mila Drobnjak, Dunja Vladisavljević, Ivana Pančić, Ibro Sakić, Slavica Bajčeta
​
With support from Film Center Serbia, Ministry of Culture of Serbia, Princess Grace Foundation, Chicken and Egg Pictures, Hungarian Film Incentive

Festival selections
Locarno Film Festival 2024 - World Premiere, Special Mention
Sarajevo Film Festival 2024, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Helsinki International Film Festival - Love & Anarchy 2024, Finland
Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival 2024, Romania
​TAIFAS  - The Balkan Film and Culture Festival 2024, Romania
Mostra de València 2024, Spain - Best Original Soundtrack Award
Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2024, Greece
​​FilmFestival Cottbus 2024, Germany - Best Film Award and FIPRESCI Award
​Scanorama European Film Forum 2024, Lithuania
​Cairo International Film Festival 2024, Egypt
​RIDM - Montreal International Documentary Festival 2024, Canada 
Singapore International Film Festival 2024
​Human Rights Film Festival Zagreb 2024, Croatia 
International Film Festival of Kerala 2024, India
​Trieste Film Festival 2025, Italy
Festival de cinéma En ville 2025, Belgium - Special Mention
First Look Festival 2025, USA
CPH:DOX - Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival 2025, Denmark
Now Instant Image Hall presented with Rotations 2025, USA
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2025, UK
Festival Internacional De Cine De Cartagena De Indias 2025, Colombia
​Internationales Frauen Film Fest Dortmund+Köln 2025, Germany
International Film Festival of Uruguay 2025
​Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz 2025, Austria - MIOB New Vision Award
Diaspora Film Festival 2025, South Korea
Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival 2025, Serbia - ​Special Mention
Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona 2025, Spain
Este Film Festival 2025, Romania
​Flying Broom International Women's Film Festival 2025, Turkey
Al Este International Film Festival 2025, Peru ​- ​Special Mention
International Film Festival Innsbruck 2025, Austria
​BEAST - International Film Festival 2025, Portugal
​​Olhar de Cinema – Curitiba International Film Festival 2025, Brazil
​Taipei Film Festival 2025, Taiwan
​Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2025, Czech Republic 
​​New Horizons International Film Festival 2025, Poland
​European Film Festival Palic 2025, Serbia
Split Film Festival 2025, Croatia
​Tirana International Film Festival​ 2025, Albania
​​​International Cinematographers’ Film Festival MANAKI BROTHERS 2025, North Macedonia
​Taoba International Youth Film Festival 2025, Georgia
​Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival 2025, Germany
Festival Internacional de Cine de Valdivia 2025, Chile
Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival 2025, Ukraine
​Eastern Neighbours Film Festival 2025, Netherlands
​this human world - International Human Rights Film Festival 2025, Austria
Les Arcs Film Festival 2025, France
Cinedays Festival of European Film 2025, North Macedonia
International Filmfest Bremen 2026, Germany - Best Visual Innovation Award
art + film + vienna 2026, Austria
​
​Director's Statement
Writer Dubravka Ugresic notes that memories appear as if from a dream, returning to haunt the present. This phone call is one such memory, and it brings with it a slew of
others - discombobulated and out of order. The aim of this film is to give these memories a container, all the while inviting witnesses.
The call came long distance. In those days, one could tell from the quality of the line. I was home alone and so the news had to be delivered to me, and quickly, before the line got cut off. 
My grandfather Zeljko in Zagreb had died, and I was to tell my mother about her father’s death. This phone call brought alarm, anxiety and a marking of some kind of an end. Receiving it was the last memory of that time I can recall in detail. In that adolescent mind, it was this incident that caused the dislocation, that brought death, and consequently caused the death of the country, our identity, disintegration of the family, community, language .
The entire film is constructed of specific memories that have stayed with me from that period just before leaving Yugoslavia. The repetition of the phone call is a structural device, mimicking the repetitive nature of remembering, fragmented like memory is fragmented. Looped. Distorted. Everything in the film is based on real events, memories, and people. Although the events happened at different time intervals - perhaps two days apart, three weeks or five months apart - in memory they are all squeezed in and around the event of the phone call. The memories circle around loss and displacement - as experienced by an eleven year old girl. This moment of departure consequently becomes the source of all my work, the setting of what’s to come.
With the film I’m interested in recreating and revisiting the days before the departure, which signal a kind of tearing, a kind of death. The film is fragmented in the same way that memory is fragmented. In fact, a migrant’s existence is inherently fragmented as they move from country to country, language to language, reality to reality. The film investigates not only personal memory but also collective memory of a particular moment in place and time. If we consider one of the aims of war to be the destruction of memory, eradicating culture’s memory and collective existence then these private, unwritten accounts act as counter-memory, surviving despite the attempts of erasure and preserving narratives outside of national and nationalistic (authoritative) agendas.

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