Across the Balkans, a visible shift in cinema is unfolding through the work of women filmmakers who are redefining language, archives, memory and authorship. In Kosovo, this is often described as a \u201cwave\u201d of women filmmakers. This movement isn\u2019t just about representation; it questions the inherited structures of filmmaking itself\u2014how stories are built, whose bodies carry meaning, how memory is stored, and what kind of knowledge cinema produces.<\/p>\n
In this conversation, Yugoslav-born filmmaker and curator Kumjana Novakova<\/strong>, living between Skopje and Sarajevo, in whose documentary film Silence of Reason,<\/em><\/strong> absence<\/em> is confronted through fragmented archival testimonies, voices of women subjected to wartime sexual violence, and Kosovar director Norika Sefa<\/strong>, based in Prague, whose films such as Looking for Venera<\/em><\/strong> and Like a Sick Yellow<\/em><\/strong> explore uncertainty, memory and bodies as unstable archives, speak about absence not as emptiness but as potential; about doubt as a creative position; and about memory, fear and experimentation as political practices.<\/p>\n Norika Sefa<\/strong>: What I feel is that this new wave of women directors partly comes from the fact that men were very comfortable with the existing, preset way of making films. They were focused on mastering that system. We, on the other hand, were left in a kind of quiet \u201celsewhere,\u201d trying to figure out how to do it differently.<\/p>\n I remember when we talked about locations, casting, crew everything was already prescribed: \u201cthis is how it\u2019s done.\u201d But our script required something else, a different approach. That was both a problem and an opportunity. It forced us to find a new way into filmmaking.<\/p>\n And the more I worked, the more this question stayed in the air: Is this really the only way filmmaking should be done? Of course, there is no single answer. That\u2019s the beauty of cinema: you never truly know how a film will turn out until the film finds its own form. Yet today\u2019s\u00a0 funding systems expect us to know everything in advance just to apply\u2014what the film will look like, how it will be structured, even which audiences will respond, like tags\u2014so we can get the money.<\/p>\n In Kosovo, I think this constant \u201ctrying to find ways\u201d became a method in itself and allowed our films to have their own distinct languages. We each had something deeply personal that demanded its own form.<\/p>\n Kumjana Novakova<\/strong>: For me, what you\u2019re saying about preconceived ways of making cinema is crucial. After the 1990s and early 2000s\u2014after all the violent parts of recent history began to \u201csettle\u201d\u2014a lot of inherited ways of doing things were questioned in society, not just in the arts.<\/p>\n In cinema, the first thing you question are the pillars of power: the male auteur figure, the director as unquestioned center, the established production models.; Some of the few women who were part of the mainstream film scene until the 90s mostly operated within a system that reproduced certain narratives.<\/p>\n So these opening cracks in the system didn\u2019t benefit those already secure in it; they benefited those who had nothing to lose\u2014women and non-binary artists. For me, it\u2019s about being able to create under conditions that you define yourself. To do that, you need skills that come from constantly being questioned. You learn to invent your own rules from those questions. That\u2019s where art is born\u2014not from inherited conventions, but from the ideas that emerge within constraints.<\/p>\n We also have to zoom out globally. The world is changing\u2014for better and for worse. Hierarchies are getting stronger, but resistance is also becoming more inventive, more equipped with new tools. Feminist movement in the region is a part of that. I don\u2019t think anyone is genuinely satisfied with the current state of the art field. And I think women and non-binary filmmakers<\/a> are often the ones with the strength to really question what is happening.<\/p>\n Norika<\/strong>: I really like what you said about this being a moment when everything is questionable. That\u2019s the best possible condition for creating\u2014to stay alert, to doubt what we take for granted.<\/p>\n What I love most about cinema is precisely that it can cast doubt on what is presented as obvious. Even narrative itself can be questioned: what we narrate, how we narrate, which structures we repeat. Right now everything feels like it\u2019s boiling; nothing is really concluded. We don\u2019t have neat endings.<\/p>\n I find it very interesting to work at such a time. It\u2019s closer to what I believe cinema should be. Institutions want to show you \u201cwhat is,\u201d to give you \u201cfacts.\u201d But today, none of those facts feels stable. What is \u201creal\u201d today might be questioned tomorrow. That instability is frightening, but in cinema it can be productive. It keeps us thinking, rather than simply consuming.<\/p>\n Kumjana<\/strong>: Exactly. You can\u2019t find genuine possibilities inside rigid, categorical filmmaking. It just doesn\u2019t respond to the time we live in.<\/p>\n What worries me more is the structural support we receive\u2014or don\u2019t receive\u2014from the spaces we still depend on: funding schemes and festivals. Enthusiasm, solidarity and informal support can carry you through a first film or a first few projects, but not forever. At some point, something has to shift so our work can develop further.<\/p>\n And here I don\u2019t see a serious change, not only in our region but globally. Cinema funding, selection committees, exhibition opportunities\u2014they\u2019re still very much governed by the \u201cboys\u2019 rules.\u201d When I say \u201cboys,\u201d I mean it in a political sense, not strictly gendered: a system designed around certain power structures.<\/p>\n I\u2019d love to see us change not only how we play, but also the rules of the game. That\u2019s the bigger political task.<\/p>\n And I think this is similar in other places too\u2014South American cinema, Arab cinema, many \u201cminor\u201d film cultures. Not \u201cminor\u201d in ethnic terms, but in the sense of what Black feminist thinkers call minor acts: small, erased spaces and narratives that carry different knowledge.<\/p>\n In that sense, we have more to offer to systemic change than established white commercial cinema does. This model comes with a fixed idea of what cinema is. It\u2019s very hard to change from that position. Can you imagine a truly radical, fully experimental edition of a major festival like Cannes? I can\u2019t. But we could imagine a first edition of some new festival in our context that is wildly experimental, because we have nothing to lose.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t have decades of institutional history telling us what a \u201cproper\u201d film is. Sometimes that\u2019s painful, but it\u2019s also an opening.<\/p>\n Norika<\/strong>: When I read the framing about \u201cabsence,\u201d I also felt how tricky the word is. It can sound like something is simply missing. But for me, absence is not about knowing exactly what\u2019s missing; it\u2019s about allowing that gap to exist.<\/p>\n