Dida

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Dida

Dida
Nikola Ilić, Corina Schwingruber Ilić
Competition for the Audience Award 2021
Documentary Film
Switzerland
2021
78 minutes
German,
Serbian
Subtitles: 
English

Nikola is a son, husband and grandson who teams up with his wife Corina to make a film about this. At its centre is his mother Dida who, due to a learning disability, has always been dependent on Nikola’s grandmother and lives with her in a small two-room flat. So far, so good. But Granny is getting old and Dida longs for independence. So it’s up to Nikola, who suddenly finds himself in charge. A charming look at a family in transition.

It’s a constant back and forth, as the couple live in Switzerland while mother Dida and Granny Dobrila live in Belgrade. No sooner have Corina and Nikola stepped out of the bus in one place when they find themselves on the return journey. Or is it the outward journey? Grandmother and daughter are a functional-dysfunctional team – one of them the brain, the other the executing body. The fact that Dida is much more than a shadow of her carer becomes apparent when Dobrila increasingly withdraws into an observer’s position. How can the grandson take over his grandmother’s duties without trading his own independence for that of his mother? The two directors succeed in making a touching film about the inescapable changes in their family without slipping into heaviness, working with lots of humour and a camera that seems to be present under any circumstances.
Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Nikola Ilić, Corina Schwingruber Ilić
Cinematographer
Nikola Ilić, Corina Schwingruber Ilić, Pablo Ferro Živanović
Editor
Myriam Flury
Producer
Franziska Sonder, Karin Koch
Sound
Vladimir Rakić, Ivan Antić
Score
Heidi Happy
World Sales
Raffaella Pontarelli
Winner of: Golden Dove (Audience Competition)