High school dramas don’t get more piercing than Dina Duma’s Sisterhood, an exceptionally well-made debut feature about an imbalanced friendship and the way heedless social media usage makes a perilous sport out of sexualization and slut-shaming. While the topic may seem well-worn, Duma gives it layers and texture, subtly weaving an underlying thread of bifurcated North Macedonian life in which emulating the fool’s gold of global pop culture, so tantalizingly close on our devices, keeps chafing against the realities of a far less entitled society. The film’s two newcomer leads play terrifically off each other, unsettling in their disturbingly uneven relationship, and the way messaging apps and Instagram are used gives it all a very international feel. As North Macedonia’s Oscar submission, Sisterhood should gain well-deserved attention (also thanks to Karlovy Vary’s East of West prize), but it merits more than only being categorized in that often-problematic grouping.
From the start, the script by Duma and Martin Ivanov nails that typical teenage sense of there being nothing in the world but themselves and their social media pages. Maya (Antonija Belazelkoska) and her bff Jana (Mia Giraud), both on the swim team, are slightly apart from their peers at the local gorge and natural pool, but Jana wants them to make a literal splash to ensure Kris (Hanis Bagashov) notices Maya. The latter isn’t exactly shy but she’s more reticent and needs her friend’s push, such as when Jana insists she act a little slutty so Kris will be interested.
When the two girls sneak out at night to go to a party, Jana urges her friend to let Kris take her virginity, partly to put Maya on her own level and partly to marginalize their rival, fellow bad girl Elena (Marija Jancevska). Kris takes Maya to a bedroom and tries more than a kiss but he’s rejected, leaving him to storm off. Maya can’t admit that she’s still a virgin, so when Kris takes Elena outside for a blowjob, Jana imagines her friend is mortified and Maya doesn’t correct the assumption. Instead, she lets Jana take her phone and film the act, succumbing to Jana’s exhortations to post the video online.
We don’t know anything about Jana’s home life, but Maya’s is troubled – her philandering father walked out on the family, making occasional reappearances that get her mother’s hopes up while infuriating their daughter. Their house on a darkened street, with its worn furniture and dingy walls badly in need of repainting, is a world distinct from school with its brightly lit modern pool and classrooms which could be in any high school, almost anywhere. The teen’s home is similar to Elena’s, where the girl’s mother has been anxiously waiting for news of her daughter, whose disappearance following a late-night party at the gorge has become the talk of the school. Maya and Jana know, they know the truth, but Jana threatens her friend if she reveals anything.
Duma ratchets up the tension as Maya’s sense of guilt overwhelms her conscience, the unbearable uncertainty of Elena’s fate weighing ever more heavily: she’s not able to jettison her moral compass even though she was getting a kick out of Jana’s charged naughtiness. It’s a difficult balancing act, but Maya’s character is strong enough to still make us believe Jana wants her as a friend, even if only to bring her down to her own level. A little background as to why Jana is quite such a mean girl would have corrected the disparity existing between the two roles, yet Elena’s chilling fate and the way her distraught mother becomes a presence, even though largely off-screen, acts to dramatically hold everything together.
The same came be said for the performances of Belazelkoska and Giraud, complementary at first, then slowly shifting as Maya realizes the toxicity of their relationship. While participating in some of her friend’s shenanigans, she has a kind of mesmeric inner core and Belazelkoska glows with a controlled intensity that’s believably contrasted with Giraud’s suitably reckless physicality. Jana uses her sexuality to make a splash, finding power in behaving provocatively, and yet she sees no problem slut-shaming Elena, who only differs from her classmate because her act was filmed and posted online.
Naum Doksevski’s cinematography makes the girls’ various realms distinct – home, school, swimming class, the outdoors – the camera attuned to the emotional states, such as the sense of disorientation at the gorge during the nighttime party. It also recognizes Belazelkoska’s strength as a performer with close-ups that capture her restrained enigmatic qualities. Texts and postings pop up on screen or are glimpsed as they’re being written with a frequency that underlines the insidious way a message, photo or video can turn into a tidal wave of destruction.
Director: Dina Duma
Screenplay: Dina Duma, Martin Ivanov
Cast: Antonija Belazelkoska, Mia Giraud, Marija Jancevska, Hanis Bagashov, Emil Isaevski, Verica Nedeska, Nora Kus-Ivanova, Ognen Drangovski, Ana Levajkovi?, May-Linda Kosumovi?.
Producer: Marija Dimitrova
Co-producers: Liridon Cahani, Biljana Vusovic, Guillaume De Seille
Cinematography: Naum Doksevski
Production design: Kiril Spaseski, Simo Branov
Costume design: Roza Trajceska
Editing: Martin Ivanov
Music: Igor Vasilev-Novogradska
Sound: Risto Alchinov
Production companies: List Production (North Macedonia), Added Value Films (Kosovo), Videa Production (Montenegro), Arizona Productions (France)
World sales: Cercamon World Sales
Venue: Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Balkan Survey)
In Macedonian
91 minutes
