The Parody of Survival: Sorella di Clausura
Sorella di Clausura, the third narrative feature by Romanian-Serbian filmmaker Ivana Mladenović, belongs to a strand of European cinema invested in examining the precariousness of identity, particularly that of women in post-socialist, economically unstable environments. Premiering in competition at the 78th Locarno Film Festival, the film draws on the autobiographical writings of Liliana Pelici, adapting them into a hybrid narrative that fuses melodrama, grotesque comedy, parody, and social commentary.
The film centers on Stela (Katia Pascariu, star of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn), a 36-year-old unemployed woman—educated yet socially isolated—whose emotional life is dominated by an obsessive attraction to Boban, a Balkan pop singer and symbolic figure of folk stardom. Mladenović uses this obsession not as an endpoint, but as a structural device through which to explore emotional, economic, and sexual marginalization. The narrative is divided into three chapters, each addressing a different form of failed intimacy. Stela is not a typical cinematic heroine. Rather, she embodies a deliberate rejection of conventional arcs of self-realization. Her character deconstructs the myth of romantic love by exposing its dependency on power dynamics, emotional asymmetry, and financial precarity. The film portrays not a personal pathology, but a socially conditioned form of alienation.
Stylistically, Mladenović adopts a visual language that reflects the protagonist’s inner disorientation. Long static takes—often shot from above or with flat frontal compositions—highlight the disconnect between character and environment. The mise-en-scène oscillates between garish color palettes and domestic clutter, reinforcing the contradiction between aspiration and material reality. The first chapter features one of the film’s most striking sequences: Stela lies naked atop a life-size poster of her idol, her body presented in a fixed shot that feels both intimate and alienating. Mladenović navigates the grotesque with restraint, never reducing her protagonist to caricature, but rather using excess and irony to emphasize structural failure rather than personal eccentricity. Set between Romania’s early post-EU boom and the global financial crisis of 2008, Sorella di Clausura situates its character’s private disappointments within a broader socioeconomic frame. The collapse of personal aspiration parallels the disintegration of neoliberal promises. The precarious labor market, the monetization of intimacy, and the erosion of social bonds are not incidental but central to the film’s critique. The figure of Vera (Cendana Trifan), a queer entrepreneur who briefly offers Stela a sense of purpose through employment in a sex shop and translation work, introduces a momentary shift in tone. However, this tentative path toward empowerment is ultimately unsustainable, not due to moral failing, but because it remains embedded within the same market logic that devalues unproductive bodies and unpaid care work.
Sorella di Clausura is a co-production between Romania, Serbia, Italy, and Spain. Its transnational nature is not merely a matter of funding, but is reflected in the film’s multilingual dialogue, mixed cast, and culturally hybrid aesthetic. Mladenović, known for Soldiers: Story from Ferentari (Soldatii. Poveste din Ferentari, 2017) and Ivana the Terrible (2019), continues her exploration of peripheral lives and blurred boundaries between fiction and autobiography. The collaboration with Pelici adds a layer of textual authenticity, but the film never falls into autofiction. Rather, it maintains a critical distance, emphasizing collective realities over individual catharsis. The protagonist’s body becomes a site of inscription—of both desire and constraint—where personal longing meets structural limitation. With Sorella di Clausura, Ivana Mladenović delivers a film that is formally cohesive and thematically rigorous. It refuses the tropes of redemption or resolution, instead portraying the persistence of emotional vacancy as a condition of contemporary existence. The film challenges the viewer to remain with discomfort rather than escape it. In a cinematic landscape often invested in trauma as spectacle or in narratives of survival as triumph, Sorella di Clausura stands out for its refusal to comfort. It opts instead for an honest depiction of affective and material disintegration, aligning itself with a broader tendency in European auteur cinema that seeks to articulate the invisible costs of social transition and emotional isolation.
Alessandro Amato
Edited by Robert Horton
© FIPRESCI 2025