BELGRADE: The revered Serbian filmmaker Srđan Dragojević will start shooting his new project International Women’s Day / Osmi mart in August 2026. The film is made as a coproduction among Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Germany, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, and it has already been acquired by Madrid-based Latido Films.
International Women’s Day is a bitter black comedy about a woman trying to fit into a world that doesn’t want her, but also about cultural imperialism served up in the guise of empowerment, and the price we pay when we stop pretending.
Vesna is an anthropology professor on the verge of her fifties, stuck in a routine without perspective. Her days are filled with lectures in half-empty amphitheaters, student protests that young people take more seriously than she does, and colleagues who treat her like an unpleasant addition to the furniture. Her son, Vojkan, is a student, but he spends more time in the world of digital platforms than at the university, while her ex-husband, Ljuba, started a new family a long time ago. When she is accidentally invited to address students at a protest, Vesna’s performance goes viral. However, what the young people see as fun anarchy, her colleagues and ex-husband see as chaos. In the middle of this turmoil, she receives an unexpected invitation: the wife of the American ambassador invites her to an exclusive reception on the occasion of 8 March, in the society of the “powerful women” of the Balkans.
“Visually and structurally, this film of mine is most reminiscent of Blake Edwards and his iconic film The Party (1968). Like Hrundi V. Bakshi, Vesna is a dysfunctional element in a perfectly ordered world. However, while Bakshi was an innocent outsider, Vesna is a product of the very system that is now devastating. Her performance on stage, where she performs the rebellious rock song ‘Apocalypso’ instead of the expected gentle song, is not an accidental glitch but an act of liberation. Just as in The Party, the destruction begins awkwardly but escalates into total chaos. Nevertheless, there is a sharper Balkan spice to it. The cataclysm at the reception is not just the physical destruction of decorations, but the symbolic burning of false identities. Vesna, like an anti-hero, dissects the performativity of power, showing how these ‘powerful women’ are actually just puppets,” Dragojević told FNE.
Dragojević also wrote the script, which is based on a short story by Rumena Bužarovska, a popular author in Macedonia and the post-Yugoslav region. The main cast is led by Croatian actress Ksenija Marinković, accompanied by Australian-Serbian actress Bojana Novaković, Serbian actresses Nada Šargin and Hristina Popović, and Macedonian actor Toni Mihajlovski.
The film is produced by Biljana Prvanović (Serbia’s Delirium Films) and coproduced by Marcian Lazăr (Romania’s Axel Film), Katya Trichkova (Bulgaria’s Contrast Films), Boštjan Virc (Slovenia’s Studio Virc), Julia Irene Peters and Jutta Feit (Germany’s JIPPIE Film GmbH), Jamila Wenske (Germany’s Achtung Panda! Media GmbH), Hrvoje Osvadić (Croatia’s Petnaesta Umjetnost), Milena Charan (Montenegro’s Taurus Production), and Elena Stanisheva (North Macedonia’s VEDA Film Productions). Mike Downey serves as associate producer.
Prior to Eurimages Co-production Support (316,000 EUR) received recently, the project was supported by Film Center Serbia, the Romanian Film Center (CNC), the Slovenian National Film Centre, the Film Centre of Montenegro, the North Macedonian Film Agency, the Bulgarian National Film Center, as well as Germany’s Hessen Film funding.
Shooting is expected to start on location in Belgrade and Skopje at the beginning of August and to wrap by the end of September 2026.
Production Information:
Producer:
Delirium Films (Serbia)
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Coproducers:
Axel Film (Romania)
Contrast Films (Bulgaria)
Studio Virc (Slovenia)
JIPPIE Film GmbH (Germany)
Achtung Panda! Media GmbH (Germany)
Petnaesta Umjetnost (Croatia)
Taurus Production (Montenegro)
VEDA Film Productions (North Macedonia)
Credits:
Director: Srđan Dragojević
Scriptwriter: Srđan Dragojević (based on the short story by Rumena Bužarovska)
DoP: Tatjana Krstevski
Cast: Ksenija Marinković, Bojana Novaković, Nada Šargin, Hristina Popović, Toni Mihajlovski
