Letter from a girl from Kosovo, dedicated to her missing father, read at the United Nations, in which she publicly addresses the difficult life of Serbs, especially Serb children in the enclaves.
Darkling is the newest International Feature submission from Serbia. It takes place in the region of Metohija, right in the border between Kosovo and Albania. It focuses on the Albanian guerrilla attacks following the Kosovo War in 2004. Director Dusan Milic has created a gripping home invasion thriller.
A young girl, Milica, is living with her mother and grandfather in a near abandoned village. Her dad and uncle have disappeared. Their house almost looks like a prison. It’s covered in barbed wire, all the windows are covered with rugs, their are triple locks on all the doors, as well as wooden planks, to keep any intruders from entering their property. There’s no electricity. The phones have died. The atmosphere is one of a horror film where it’s unknown what’s happening on the outside, but what’s out there must be truly horrifying.
Most families in the area have already left. Milica continues to go to school, along with five other children. Every morning, the kids are picked up by tankers from the UN, first by the Italians and then by the Americans. One day their teacher asks them to write a letter to the president, explaining to him what it feels like to live in the area, and to explain their day to day lives.
Milica writes “I sit here under the table in pitch darkness and I’m terrified. Even if I could light the candle, it would give just a little light around it but everything else would still remain in darkness. That’s how powerful this darkness is for us.” The film truly captures that unsettling feeling when you’re in the middle of nowhere. You never ever see any intruders but just knowing they might be lingering in the forest right outside their home is petrifying. There’s a sense of abandonment. There’s a feeling of denial and trauma. The film is a reflection on the inability to leave one’s home, even though it’s the only solution. And therefore these last few families remaining in a war torn area are truly left in the pitch darkness.