When “Wake Up on Mars” director Dea Gjinovci read a 2017 New Yorker article about a pair of teenage refugees suffering from a mysterious coma-like condition, the young director knew she had to make contact.
Though the article had already prompted a significant share of media interest from more established institutions, Gjinovci intuited different shades in the story of the Demiri family and their girls Ibadeta and Djeneta.
“I saw that they were from Kosovo, where my father is from too,” she explains. “I knew their cultural background, I knew what happened during the war, and I just wanted to reach out.”
Gjinovci had explored similar subjects with her award-wining short “Sans le Kosovo,” which the filmmaker sent to one of the doctors from the article, and which helped pave the way for Gjinovci to visit the family in July 2017. Upon arriving in Sweden, things fell into the place quick enough.
Though the article had already prompted a significant share of media interest from more established institutions, Gjinovci intuited different shades in the story of the Demiri family and their girls Ibadeta and Djeneta.
“I saw that they were from Kosovo, where my father is from too,” she explains. “I knew their cultural background, I knew what happened during the war, and I just wanted to reach out.”
Gjinovci had explored similar subjects with her award-wining short “Sans le Kosovo,” which the filmmaker sent to one of the doctors from the article, and which helped pave the way for Gjinovci to visit the family in July 2017. Upon arriving in Sweden, things fell into the place quick enough.
- 4/24/2020
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
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