Story
Ana gives birth at the local hospital and everything goes well.
There is only a small, bureaucratic problem; Ana’s file is not on the computer. A software glitch, probably nothing serious.
Within a few days, Ana is entangled in a web of Kafkaesque proportions; Not being in the computer means no social security, no permanent address. All of a sudden Ana is a foreigner, even though she has lived in Slovenia all of her life.
Legally, she doesn’t exist.
So, her child is an orphan.
And orphans are put up for adoption.
On 26th February 1992 the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Slovenia erased 25,671 people who were born outside Slovenia, in the states that once were part of Yugoslavia:
“The “Erased” were mainly people from other former Yugoslav republics, who had been living in Slovenia. They are mostly of non-Slovene or mixed ethnicity, and they include a significant number of members of Romani communities.” (wikipedia)
Some of them thought themselves Slovenians until they have to show their identity card.
The majority of them still haven’t been able to regain their legal status.
(read more in this article from 2017: Justice evades Slovenia’s erased citizens).
States often erase some of their citizens, turning them into stateless persons.
Newspaper headlines
- United Kingdom, 2018: ‘They erased a bit of my life’: Windrush generation on Home Office treatment
- India, 2018: Assam register: Four million risk losing India citizenship
- Dominican Republic, 2018: The Dominican Republic’s Revocation Of Citizenship Creates 200,000 Stateless People
- Myanmar, 2012: Rohingya: Stateless and ‘friendless’ in Myanmar
Awards
National awards:
- Judita Franković Brdar – best actress, Festival of Slovenian Films, 2018
- Jura Ferina, Pavao Miholjević, Vladimír Godár – best music, Festival of Slovenian Films, 2018
- Matjaž Pavlovec – best set design, Festival of Slovenian Films, 2018
- Sanja Džeba – best costume design, Festival of Slovenian Films, 2018
International awards:
- Miha Mazzini – best screenplay, Raindance festival, London, UK, 2019
- Miha Mazzini – best screenplay, FEST festival, Belgrade, Serbia, 2019
- Judita Franković Brdar – best actress, Festival of Croatian Films, 2019
- Judita Franković Brdar – special mention of FEDEORA critics jury at the Festival of Croatian Films, 2019
Cast & crew
Writer: Miha Mazzini
Director: Dušan Joksimović, Miha Mazzini
Judita Franković Brdar: Ana
Sebastijan Cavazza: Lover
Izudin Bajrović: Father
Doroteja Nadrah: Tanja
Silva Čušin: Mother
Jernej Kogovšek: Senad
Marko Mandić: TV Host
