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Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #111. Mirjana Karanović’s Majka Mara

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Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #111. Mirjana Karanović’s Majka Mara

Published on January 11, 2023

Majka Mara

Veteran Serbian actress Mirjana Karanović (best known for Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams) moved behind the camera back in ’16 for the Sundance preemed A Good Wife (Dobra žena). She moved back into the saddle for her sophomore film this past August with Majka Mara (Mother Mara). Part of the Venice Gap market in ’21 and recipient of Eurimages coin in ’21, the Serbia, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Switzerland co-production is based on a screenplay that Karanović wrote along with Maja Pelević and Ognjen Sviličić which includes some notes from a theatre play by Tanja Šljivar. Karanović plays the lead and is supported by Vučić Perović, Boris Isaković, Jasna Žalica and Jelena Ćuruvija. This is about facing a devastating loss and moving on.

Gist: This focuses on a successful businesswoman whose life is turned upside down by the sudden death of her only son. Through a relationship with a younger man, she tries to cope with the loss and find a way to move on.

Release Date/Prediction: We think this could compete for the Golden Leopard in Locarno.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).