Croatian filmmaker Hana Jušić’s second feature, God Will Not Help, arrives in Sarajevo’s competition after its world premiere at Locarno.
The film is a horror-tinged drama in which a Chilean woman, Teresa, comes into an isolated mountain community of Croatian shepherds in the early 20th century, claiming to be the widow of their émigré brother. Her arrival changes the dynamics between the members of the community and brings unrest, but also inspiration for some of the other women.
God Will Not Help is a co-production between Croatia’s Kinorama, Italy’s Nightswim, Romania’s Microfilm, Greece’s Horsefly Films, France’s Maneki Films, and Slovenia’s Perfo.
How did you come up with the idea for the film?
I always wanted to make a kind of a Victorian film, with women as main characters, except in this mountainous region of Dalmatian Zagora, which is the most beautiful part of Croatia for me. I was inspired by John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, an ultimate meta-Victorian novel. From there I borrowed this mysterious woman who comes out of nowhere and builds her own narrative.
How did you find the actors, especially Manuela Martelli, who plays Teresa, and Filip Djurić, who plays Ilija?
I saw Manuela in a Chilean short film, and I immediately wanted to work with her. I met her six years later and she turned out to be perfect for this role.
I struggled with the character of Ilija, I didn’t want him to be some stereotypical hermit philosopher, I wanted him to have a real, intelligent depth, so that you can feel a specific conflict within him. When I saw (Serbian actor) Filip Djurić in Marko Djordjević’s My Morning Laughter, I realised he was Ilija. It’s a completely different character, but he can convey this kind of anxiety.
Lack of communication is a big topic in the film. Teresa only speaks Spanish and other characters only speak Croatian.
I’ve always been annoyed by this movie convention, that people who speak different languages suddenly perfectly understand each other. But it’s very difficult to build a deep character if it’s a person that no one can understand, so Teresa would just remain a kind of mysterious shadow. I wanted to be able to get closer to her.
This came out in rehearsals in Zagreb. Croatian actors don’t speak Spanish and Manuela doesn’t speak Croatian, so we tested how convincing the communication would be. They talked in English, but the Croatian actors and Filip would forget and start talking in their mutual language so she would be left out, just like Teresa is in the film. This is where I learned that some of the scenes from the script wouldn’t work in the way I intended.
How did you develop the look and feel of the film?
Wuthering Heights is my favourite novel, and when I was writing the script, I was driven by the image of a black dress fluttering in the wind in a vast landscape. It had to be a very wide picture. And those little figures of shepherds in this huge space, it’s very fascinating to me. There’s an eerie element to it.
We had to build all the sets, those old stone houses in the region don’t look like that anymore, they are more akin to ruins, so we built on their foundations and what was left of them.
A big production like this is expensive, so we needed international funding. But for our Italian production designer Laura Boni, this kind of architecture and farming life was very familiar, so it went smoothly.
What about the music?
I wanted something like [German electro band] Tangerine Dream. We needed Greek composers as it is a Greek co-production, but editor Jan Klemsche took it upon himself. He went on Instagram and browsed small Greek labels and stumbled upon Stavros Evangelou. He sent us his music and we knew immediately it was what we were looking for.
He, Iris Asimakopoulou and Vasilis Chontos were really invested and they made music based on individual scenes. It’s wonderful that it happened so organically.
Even though this is a co-production between six countries, which is rare in Croatian cinema, I’m happy I was able to keep my core crew, including Jan, DoP Jana Plećaš and costume designer Katarina Pilić. I can also wholeheartedly say that all the co-producers got very good crew members, and the filming went very smoothly.
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