BRANKA
Akos K. KovacsIn 1991 Yugoslavia a nurse named Branka gets a job at a maternity ward of a state hospital. The young woman is all alone, but it turns out loneliness is not the hardest burden she has to carry.
Hungary | 2021 | 20 min
PRODUCTION: Gabor Osvath, Zsuzsi Gyurin – Salamandra Film, Filmfabriq
CAST: Dina Musanovic, Dorottya Antoci, Nenad Pecinar, Natalia Vicei
SCREENPLAY: Akos K. Kovacs, Tamas Olah
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Levente Toth
EDITING: Daniel Marton
Synopsis
Yugoslavia, 1991. Somewhere near the Hungarian border, far away from the war zones and frontlines, Branka – a nurse from Sarajevo – gets a job at a maternity ward of a state hospital. The young woman is all alone, she is far away from her family stuck in the warzone. On her first day she meets Angela who came to deliver her first baby without anyone accompanying her. Strong bonds form between the two of them in a short period of time. They recognize their own vulnerability in each other. However, it soon turns out that loneliness is not the hardest burden Branka has to carry. Newborn babies are mysteriously disappearing from the hospital.
Director's statement
The film is based on many true stories. It was a scary realization for me that everyone around me from the older generation in Serbia knew about the child abducting stories. They just simply didn’t talk about it. This great common silence began to interest me. This was the origin for the story of “Branka”.
Festivals & Awards (selection)
Krakow Film Festival, 2021 | Friss Hus Budapest International Short Film Festival, 2021 | BuSho (Budapest Short), 2021 – Student Jury Best Fiction, BuSho Award – Prize of Szeged | Tehran International Short Film Festival, 2021 | Linea d’Ombra Festival – CortoEuropa Competition – Special Jury Award, Audience Award | Go Short International Short Film Festival, 2022
2 June 2023, 19:00 hours Filmtheater Kriterion
Amsterdam
Director's bio
Akos K. Kovacs was born in 1991 in Senta, Yugoslavia. After he finished high school in Subotica he moved to Budapest Hungary, to study cinematography in the Metropolitan University. His BA diploma work, “Away” (directed by Roland Ferge) debuted at the Berlinale Generation in 2014 where it won Special Mention of the Generation Kplus International Jury. Akos started to work in films also as writer and director. “Branka” is his first short film.