2022 | Serbia | Documentary

Kristina

  • Serbian English 90 mins
  • Director | Nikola Spasić
  • Writer | Milanka Gvoić
  • Producer | Nikola Spasic, Milanka Gvoic

STATUS: Released

This film is currently not available.   

Kristina is a transgender sex worker in Serbia. She plays herself in a film of the same name that modestly depicts her daily life in a fictional way. We are at her home, with her. Incredibly elegant, she enjoys creating ikebanas under the luxurious, baroque shade of her garden. The surprisingly shrill ringing of her phone disrupts the perfect scene. Kristina explains the pricing of her services to her interlocutor. In the following shots, in an interior that matches her elegance, armed with a large fan that she gracefully displays, she awaits her client. Upon his arrival, she confidently and superbly orders that their shoes be removed and a shower taken. The sobriety and delicacy of her life contradict all the clichés surrounding her profession. As close as possible to its character, the film embraces her placidity and proceeds with a quiet sovereignty, in a succession of tableaux with impeccably crafted framing and compositions, like a series of icons with Kristina at the center. Kristina is a believer. When she looks for the most suitable place in her home to accommodate a small crucifix, the ringing of her telephone once again cuts her endeavor short. In doing so, Nikola Spasic stages the tension that inhabits Kristina between the possibility of living her faith and the exercise of an activity that, according to religious and social doxa, contradicts it. Tracing an inner journey in the secret calm of churches and forests, the film also opens at its heart a space for confession, in frontal shots where Kristina tells her story. It does not, however, take the path of repentance. On the contrary, it affirms the profound freedom of a modern woman, captured in majesty in a bold portrait with lines inspired by iconostases that open onto the divine.

Transgender Reflection Elegance Spirituality Identity
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