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Dara of Jasenovac

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7.5/10 • 83

2020-11-252h 10m

DramaHistoryWar

During the Nazi-occupied Ustasha regime "NDH" in former Yugoslavia during WWII, little girl Dara is sent to the concentration camp complex Jasenovac in Croatia also known as "Balkan's Auschwitz".

Directors
Predrag Antonijević
Writters
Nataša Drakulić
Editors
Filip Dedić

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Biljana Čekić

    Biljana Čekić

    Dara

  2. Marko Janketić

    Marko Janketić

    Vjekoslav 'Maks' Luburić

  3. Vuk Kostić

    Vuk Kostić

    Fra Majstorović

  4. Igor Đorđević

    Igor Đorđević

    Ante Vrban

  5. Nataša Ninković

    Nataša Ninković

    Radojka

  6. Radoslav 'Rale' Milenković

    Radoslav 'Rale' Milenković

    Čovek koji je odbijen da uđe u voz

  7. Anja Stanić

    Anja Stanić

    Nada Ilić

  8. Nikolina Friganović

    Nikolina Friganović

    Mileva

  9. Zlatan Vidović

    Zlatan Vidović

    Mile Ilić

Reviews1

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badelf Avatar

badelf

Mar 22, 2025

9/10

There's a particular discomfort in discovering, after decades of historical education and over a hundred Holocaust-related films, that significant chapters of atrocity have remained invisible to me. "Dara of Jasenovac" delivers precisely this uncomfortable revelation, chronicling horrors at Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp - a genocide I had never encountered in history books or cinema. Predrag Antonijevic's unflinching film follows ten-year-old Dara through what was sometimes called "the Auschwitz of the Balkans", where the fascist Ustase regime murdered primarily Serbs, but also Jews, Roma, and political dissidents. That such a significant murder camp could remain relatively unknown in the Western conscious speaks to the politics of historical memory. What distinguishes this story is not just its focus on a lesser-known atrocity, but its disturbing examination of Croatia's independent enthusiasm for mass murder, without direct Nazi management. "Dara of Jasenovac" functions as both historical correction and cold mirror. The film's most devastating insight is not historical but philosophical. Through Dara's eyes, we witness the seamless transformation of ordinary people into monsters. Unlike the bureaucratic, industrialized killing of Nazi death camps, Jasenovac reveals something more primal - the apparent eagerness with which humans will torture and murder their neighbors when given permission by authority. The film's power comes largely from its uncompromising realism. Antonijevic's direction, the haunting cinematography, meticulously detailed sets, and the extraordinarily naturalistic performances - especially from Biljana Cekic as Dara - create an immersive historical world that feels horrifyingly authentic. Cekic's performance is remarkable for its restraint; her watchful eyes become our lens into this nightmare. This movie raises the questions "How could this specific atrocity be forgotten?", and the more significant "What within human nature makes such cruelty possible?" Both these questions are terribly uncomfortable. The latter even more terrifying in the light of the rise of fascist power in the United States. That humans so readily inflict suffering on one another when ideologically sanctioned, casts the lens on the darkest side of our human nature. "Dara of Jasenovac" is difficult, necessary cinema that reminds us that the phrase "never again" remains hollow so long as significant chapters of atrocity remain unacknowledged and the human capacity for cruelty remains unexamined.

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Status
Released
Original Language
Serbian
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
naziworld war iicroatiajasenovac