The most popular cinematic subject of recent years all over the world is undoubtedly … a woman. Working mother, efficient professional, superhero, etc.: in every shape and form, a woman is now the absolute protagonist in cinema, after the rise of #MeToo and contemporary equality movements, which have continued the work of emancipation begun decades ago. Emancipation is, of course, pretty much done in the Western world, and for that reason in Hollywood, for example, sister films mostly tell stories from the past. However, this is not the case in our area.

It is indeed remarkable – and not at all accidental – that a large number of films on this very topic have been produced in recent years in the wider Balkan region. Stories of women, usually young but not only, who are trying to take control of their lives and escape the control system in order to realize their dreams. And this is not decades ago, but today. Last Thursday, the Cannes-winning film by Antonetta Alamat Kusijanovic from Croatia “Last Summer” also screened in Greek cinemas. There, off the coast of Dalmatia, a young girl struggles to escape the constraints of her overbearing father, who has destined her to become a “good housewife”.

Movies are usually about young women who are trying to take control of their lives and escape from the control system.

The situation is similar in “Searching for Venus” by Norika Sefa, which we saw at the last Festival in Thessaloniki. The Kosovo/North Macedonia co-production takes us to a small Balkan village where teenage Venus experiences a difficult sexual awakening as she essentially lives with three generations of her family, without any personal space. Outside the house, a brother, nephew or neighbor takes care of … surveillance, and Venera and her friend Dorina dream of only one thing: no matter how much they look like their “captive” mothers.

In both of the above films, we have fights, screaming, hormonal explosions and generally a lot of tension in front of the camera. However, not as much as in Blue Moon (also premiered in Thessaloniki) by Alina Grigore from Romania. There, the sexual experience will be not just revealing, but explosive: Irina enters into a violent conflict with her family, while simultaneously trying to pass the university in order to escape from the shackles of the province.

In the province of Kosovo, this time also takes place the action of the “Queen of the Hive” Blert Basoli, which we see in Chinobo. Here the protagonist is a middle-aged, but slightly elderly woman who, having lost her husband in the last bloodshed in the Balkans and having two children, starts a small agricultural business in the company of several other widows facing similar problems. Her village’s male-dominated, closed society is hostile to them, in a story where the struggle for freedom is not just an ideological one, but a matter of survival. With their personal vision, all four female filmmakers, all young, express a very real request for a film that, regardless of artistic value, is overflowing with authenticity and deserves attention.