At the largest documentary film festival in the world, the 27th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA (19th – 30th November), a dokufiction tribute to late grandmother Marija’s Own by Željka Sukova (produced by Association UKUS) will find its place among nearly 300 documentaries in the program.

The film will be shown in the program The Female gaze which aims to emphasize women’s impact on contemporary documentary production in the world. During the festival of Marija’s Own will also be available on IDFA.tv for free online watching.

Fifteen leading female directors of documentary film, including Pirjo Honkasalo, Barbara Kopple, Kim Longinotto and Jasmila Žbanić, have been invited to present three films in the program: one by themselves, one directed by a woman who inspires them, and one of the creative documentary director they wished to emphasize. In the third category, Marija’s Own was chosen by Jasmila Žbanić who will also present her own film Images from the Corner (2003).

In recent decades, a great deal of research has been undertaken into how images of women are produced in the media. This research has focussed principally on the role of women in advertising, on television and in fiction films. This prompted IDFA to devote special attention this year to women in documentary. The central question is whether women are (also) under-represented compared to men both in front of and behind the camera in the documentary. Does the glass ceiling exist in the documentary industry? How are women represented in documentaries, and does something like ‘the female gaze’ exist in documentaries?
The result is a Female gaze program with a total of 28 documentaries: classics including Portrait of Jason (1967) by Shirley Clarke and The House is Black (1962) by Forough Farrokhzad as well as films by emerging talents such as How to Pick Berries (2010) by Elina Talvensaari and Waiting for August by Teodora Ana Mihai.

Marija Violić, to whom the film Marija’s Own is dedicated, was afraid that when she’s gone the world will forget her. However, thanks to her grand daughters Željka – director, Nina Violić – an actress in the Croatian National Theatre, and Danira (in the film she is played by contemporary dancer Mila Čuljak), the world is just starting to get to know Marija!