Yugodivas

An actress, a painter and three musicians from Belgrade leave their homeland to venture a new beginning in New York. The outbreak of the war in 1991 and especially the bomb raids on Belgrade in the spring of 1999 have changed their lives forever. Memories and a painful analysis of the old homeland preoccupy their thoughts. The film tells us the story of their everyday live, the theatre, painting, music and the search for a lost homeland.

Five New York divas close up. The thing that in addition to their friendship links these gifted, confident and beautiful women a painter, an actress and three musicians is their shared homeland, former Yugoslavia. Looked at from this distance, far away from the events of the war, a surprisingly different view emergesMirjana, Milica, Sandra, Vesna and Danijela belong to a generation of young people from Serbia who left the country long before war broke out in a quest to fulfil their dreams elsewhere. They left behind a country which no longer exists. Nostalgia and the issue of cultural identity leave their mark on the art and everyday life of these women.

For Andrea Staka, a filmmaker of Croatian-Bosnian extraction who grew up in Switzerland, the stories of these women reflect her own.

Through captivating and empathising images the film sensitively approaches the artists and their work. Personal memories and reflections replace the flood of media reports.