When the Phone Rang

Director: Iva Radivojević

2024 / 73min / DCP

A life-altering telephone call received by Lana (Natalija Ilinčić), an 11-year-old living in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1992, on the threshold of civil war, sets events in motion—or, at least, seems to—in Radivojević’s sui generis third feature, which combines aspects of autofiction, the essay film, and drama, in a work where memories of a now-lost reality and the present-tense seem to blend together, with Martin DiCicco’s 16mm photography variously suggesting the melancholy and the glorious freshness of adolescence. “The film revisits the days before dislocation—signaling a tearing, a kind of death. As if from a dream, memories return to haunt the present. The repetition of the phone call mimics the nature of remembering. Looped. Distorted.” —Iva Radivojević

Q&A with director Iva Radivojević on Saturday, January 17th

Part of Iva Radivojević Selects