Landscapes of Resistance

Sonja (97) was one of the first women who joined the partisan resistance movement in Yugoslavia. Inspired by the revolutionary books she received from a classmate in high school, she joined the communist and antifascist organization in the late 1930s and in 1941 became a partisan fighter in German-occupied Serbia. Ultimately, she was captured, tortured and after several other prisons and concentration camps taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There she became a member of the resistance and a leader of its combat unit. By listening to Sonja’s story, we travel through the landscapes of her revolutionary life as they exist today – the Serbian forests and mountains where the partisans gathered and the muddy grounds and countless chimneys of Auschwitz – towards her tiny Belgrade flat where she lives with her husband and cat. For over 10 years, director Marta Popivoda and Sonja’s granddaughter and co-author of the film Ana Vujanovic recorded their conversations with Sonja. What starts off as a celebration of the resistance of one woman and her comrades gradually turns into a cinematic antifascist manifesto as the filmmakers become more and more confronted with the rise of fascism in Europe today.