Slovenian filmmaker Kukla, whose debut film Fantasy premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and was screened at the Thessaloniki Film Festival this week, is currently working on his second feature. We’ve briefly mentioned the project before, but Variety exclusively has additional information, including the working title, casting, and Kukla’s inspiration.
Her next project, tentatively titled “The Good Girl,” is a modern take on Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy “Lysistrata,” about an Athenian woman who argues that women in warring city-states should stop having sex with men until they stop fighting, Kukla told Variety from the Greek coastal city of Thessaloniki, where Mount Olympus can be seen across the ocean.
In this updated version of “Lysistrata,” the threat of World War III looms, and one TikToker “randomly shouts out the idea that we should stop having sex with men, and if men want to kill us, we should stop having children, and she starts a massive movement around the world,” Kukla said.
The film is partially inspired by South Korea’s 4B movement, a radical feminist movement that calls for the rejection of sex, childbearing, dating, and marriage. It began as a response to men’s violence against women, but expanded into a protest against male oppression. It spread to the United States following President Trump’s victory last year.
The new film will be set in various regions, including the Balkans and France, Kukla says, “because we believe that women’s unity will save the world, and we really want to show the strength of women everywhere.”
“Fantasy” actresses Sara Al Saleh, Mina Milovanovic and Mia Skrivinac will also appear in the second film. Skrbinac is a professional actress, but Al Saleh and Milovanovic are not. All three also appeared in Kukla’s 2020 short “Sisters,” which featured the same characters and storyline as “Fantasy,” which won the Grand Prix at Clermont-Ferrand Airport. Short film festival.
Mina Milovanovic, Sara Al Saleh, Mia Skrivinac “Fantasy”
Provided by Lazar Bogdanovic
“Good Girl” is “kind of an homage to them, because we’ve been on such a long journey together and grown together as people and as filmmakers,” Kukla says.
Like “Good Girl,” “Fantasy” has its roots in Kukla’s interest in patriarchy, gender roles, and identity.
The film centers on three tomboyish Slovenian best friends, Mihlije, Sina, and Jasna, who refuse to follow their community’s conservative norms and traditions such as arranged marriages.
Alina Juhart and Salah Al Saleh “Fantasy”
Provided by Lazar Bogdanovic
An encounter with a transgender woman’s fantasy turns their world upside down, setting them on a journey of self-discovery that explores alternative approaches to gender roles and sexuality.
Fantasy performer Alina Juhart is well known in the Balkans due to her appearances in television talent shows. “What’s really interesting is that on the one hand it’s a very conservative place, but on the other hand it’s very welcoming, and you feel the power of pop culture in that. So there are a lot of pop culture moments in this movie, because I think it’s good to make it relatable for the audience.”
“Fantasy” starring Mina Milovanovic, Mia Skrivinac, Sara Al Saleh, Alina Juhart
Provided by Lazar Bogdanovic
“I wanted them to be co-producers of the film. In a way, they were co-editing the script with me,” she said of the three young lead actresses, so it could be seen through their eyes. “I truly believe that we found people who had the essence of the characters within themselves. So they weren’t playing themselves, they were playing parts of themselves. That’s why it was such a transformative process for all of us. They were telling their own words from their own perspectives. It was really important to me that this film came from within and that we were represented equally.”
The idea for the film came to Kukla 10 years ago when she became interested in the phenomenon of “sworn virginity.” A sworn virgin was a woman in the ancient Balkans who took a vow of chastity, lived and dressed as a man, and was considered to belong to the third gender.
She had the idea of transferring this rejection of femininity and traditional gender roles to a modern environment, even though patriarchy still holds sway. In this social environment, they are called tomboys, brawling like boys and fiercely independent.
“That’s when the idea struck me: what would happen if a sworn virgin met a transgender woman in the Balkans,” she says. “That encounter opened up a whole perspective on femininity in the Balkans, and it led me to core questions like, ‘Can I see myself untainted by the male gaze? Or where are the female eyes? Where is the female voice? And from there, it spreads out in so many directions.’
Kukla lives in Belgrade, Serbia, but grew up in Slovenia and her parents are from North Macedonia. Her birth name was Katarina Bogdanovic, but Kukla, which means “doll” in Macedonian, was her childhood nickname that stuck.
“In the late ’90s and early 2000s,[Slovenia]was a very xenophobic place,” Kukla says. “My national identity sank into shame. I speak perfect Slovenian, but when I heard my mother speaking there was a lot of bullying. So we were not accepted as a community.”
“Then the integration process has been successful, for example, and now it has become a kind of subculture. I mean, this is a very interesting cultural phenomenon. I’m very interested in the fluidity of identity. So I reflect that in the film, too, because any diaspora is always more conservative than the country of origin. And there are many different cultures mixed together.”
Fantasy acts as a catalyst in this film, leading to questioning of views on identity, including Balkan queer identity.
“Fantasy is not afraid of her weakness, but at the same time she is not afraid of her power. I wanted to incorporate a Balkan queerness in my film that is not dependent on Western queerness. I think we all have our own versions,” says Kukla.
“I don’t think of her as a passive character at all. I think she’s very proactive. But with her stance on her own identity and her honesty and courage, she shows the other three women that there are different versions of femininity and that you can live your own truth. And that’s what I really wanted to show in this movie, because the Balkans is a very contradictory place. It’s a very transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic place, but her DMs are full of straight men.” That was a contradiction that I was very angry about. Because while there is a lot of sexual interest in trans women, there is no interest in them as normal human beings, as equals in society. ”
“Fantasy” was produced by Lija Pogačnik, Bárbara Daljavec and Vlad Blažić for December in Slovenia. The film was also screened in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival and is distributed internationally by Totem Films.
The Hollywood Reporter first reported on Kukla’s second film.
