DVD: As If I Am Not There

Format: PAL
Region: Region 2
Number of discs: 1
Classification: 18
Studio: Element Pictures
DVD Release Date: 01 June 2011
Run Time: 106 minutes

admin | June 30, 2011 | Comments (0)

DIR/WRI: Juanita Wilson • PRO: James Flynn, Nathalie Lichtenthaeler, Karen Richards • DOP: Tim Fleming • ED: Nathan Nugent • DES: Bujar Muca • Cast: Natasa Petrovic, Stellan Skarsgård, Miraj Grbic

Based on Croatian Slavenka Drakulic’s novel, Juanita Wilson’s As If I Am Not There is an unforgettable and powerful film shedding light on the atrocities committed in former Yugoslavia. Natasha Petrovic plays Samira, who is teaching in a rural village when a gang of soldiers arrive who shoot all the men, and take the women away to a prison camp. Here the soldiers systematically rape and subject the women to horrific humiliation and torture. Samira adopts her own measures in order to survive.

It is a distinctive debut feature from Wilson, whose skill behind the camera is obvious as the film unfolds. Employing sparse dialogue, Wilson uses the camera patiently in a way that affects a mood of visceral tension riddled with a chronic sense of dread. By focusing on one woman’s story, Wilson’s brave directorial debut presents the depressing reality of war – the pain and suffering it inflicts on innocent people. As If I Am Not There is both a story that needs to be told and a film that needs to be seen.

Steven Galvin

As If I Am Not There is released on DVD on 1st June 2011