‘17’ review: Newcomer Eva Kostic impresses in intense sexual assault drama

Dir: Kosara Mitic. North Macedonia/Serbia/Slovenia. 2026. 105 mins.

At first, a close-up shot of two teenage boys and a girl making out looks as though it could be consensual. That’s until the words “Be still” being uttered by one of the lads make it abruptly clear that, however the encounter started, it has tipped over into rape. The unflinching opening view of 17’s protagonist Sara (Eva Kostic) sets the tone for Kosara Mitic’s impressively controlled and intense feature debut, which highlights the silent suffering of many young women caught in the crosshairs of unhealthy pack dynamics and shame.

Kostic is remarkably assured for a first-time performer

Playing in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival, 17 has been enjoying a healthy festival run since its premiere in Berlin’s Perspectives, which deserves to continue. It has already been picked up for distribution in Italy and Indonesia, and although this increasingly gripping drama deals with tough subject matter, it is handled with non-sensationalist restraint that should help it find further arthouse berths.  

When the action cuts to some time later, Sara is preparing for a final school trip with her North Macedonian schoolmates to Greece. She looks bored with the entire thing already, but there’s already something evasive about the way she answers her parents’ questions about who she’ll be sharing with on the trip. When her mother observes that too much sun and wrinkles are the worst thing that can happen, we and Sara know that’s far from the case.

After she steps on the bus, there will barely be any escape from the camera for Sara — whose rapists are also along for the ride — encapsulating her feelings of being trapped in a situation she can’t see a way out of. Cinematographer Naum Doksevski takes a leaf out of the Dardennes’ playbook, refusing to look away from her experience and bearing witness to her progressively more anguished thought processes and quiet desperation.

The bus is a mass of chaos, with the handheld camera and naturalistic dialogue from Mitic and co-writer Ognjen Svilicic adding a documentary vibe. Amid the ensemble, a few characters begin to stick out, including the cocky Filip (Dame Joveski), popular party girl Nina (Eva Stojchevska) and Sara’s sweet bus neighbour Lina (Martina Danilovska), who will not be cowed by Sara’s sullen responses. There’s a question mark over whether, in real life, teachers would be quite so ineffectual as the pair are here, but given that 17 is inspired by real events, it’s certainly possible.

A stopover in Bitola is on the agenda before they cross the border, and it’s at the hotel there that the group dynamics really start to get out of hand. In one of 17’s most shockingly frank scenes, we are shown how easy it is for one person’s suffering to get lost amid the partying. If trouble is noticed, the unwritten see-nothing/say-nothing rules of the pack hold sway, and even Sara is not immune. The events of that night, however, lead to a bond between Lina and Sara that will endure to the end of the film; it is now not just one of them but two who will be trapped in silence. There are also repeated reminders that these 17-year-olds are still children no matter how adult their behaviour sometimes is, from board games to a small pink teddy bear.

Kostic is remarkably assured for a first-time performer, letting the weight of the situation gradually settle on her character before tapping into Sara’s emotional and physical pain. Mitic, meanwhile, employs time with the precision of a Swiss watch as a clock starts to tick for Sara, allowing the heartbreaking intensity of important scenes to play out without pause. There’s also a key moment when Mitic suddenly adopts Sara’s queasy point of view, adding even more immediacy and stress to her situation. As Sara thinks about decisions she has made, the director stays with her, even as the audience knows that every second is crucial. Far from these teenagers breaking their silence, it is the silence that is breaking them.