Released in 2020, “Oaza” (Oasis) is a co-production between France, Slovenia, Bosnia Herzegovina and the Netherlands. Presented at the Venice Film Festival, this dramatised film takes us to the heart of an unusual love triangle: Marija, Dragana and Robert are three young people with learning disabilities, living in a specialized institution.
The audience becomes immersed in their tormented stumbling after love and friendship, while their inexhaustible thirst for independence upsets the balanced world of the institute.
Our eyes are opened to the difficulties facing these young people in their search for freedom. The cast are novice actors, themselves with mental disabilities, thus giving added authenticity to the characters. The film was also shot in their institution. In an interview with Europa Cinemas the director Ivan Ikić says he wants to change the audience’s way of seeing the subject:
“We need a new wave of ideas on how to re-socialize people with intellectual disabilities”
Born in the former Yugoslavia, Ivan Ikić studied film-making at Belgrade’s University of the Arts. In 2008, he joined the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Berlinale Dox Clinic. In 2014 his first feature film “Varvari” (Barbarians) won the Jury Award at the Karlovy Varyet Film Festival. “Oaza” is his second feature. From the beginning Ikić made the choice to use novice actors, the better to portray the torments of Serbian youth in search of themselves and their values.
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Sources: courrierdesbalkans.fr, en.unifrance.org, europa-cinemas.org
