Dara of Jasenovac

2020 2h 10m SR

🙌

7.5

BANGER

🥫

52%

ROTTEN

⭐

8.1

IMDB

★7.5TMDB · 96🥫52%Rotten Tomatoes★8.1IMDB · 82,022

DramaHistoryWar

Synopsis

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During the Nazi-occupied Ustasha regime "NDH" in former Yugoslavia during WWII, little girl Dara is sent to the concentration camp complex Jasenovac in Croatia also known as "Balkan's Auschwitz".

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Biljana Čekić
Dara
Marko Janketić
Vjekoslav 'Maks' Luburić
Vuk Kostić
Fra Majstorović
Igor Đorđević
Ante Vrban
Nataša Ninković
Radojka
Radoslav 'Rale' Milenković
Čovek koji je odbijen da uđe u voz
Anja Stanić
Nada Ilić
Nikolina Friganović
Mileva

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Predrag Antonijević
Writers: Nataša Drakulić
Languages: Croatian, Serbian
Countries: Serbia

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 6

ERA

Did you know

Released 6 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 6

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: Croatian, Serbian.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Filip Dedić shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 6

CAST

Did you know

Biljana Čekić and Marko Janketić and Vuk Kostić carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 6

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt10554232 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 6

WILD

Did you know

Only 96 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Predrag Antonijević directs. Filip Dedić cuts. Produced in Serbia. Dialogue in Croatian, Serbian.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 6 years ago.
2Dialogue crosses 2 languages: Croatian, Serbian.
3Editor Filip Dedić shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
4Biljana Čekić and Marko Janketić and Vuk Kostić carry the top of the cast.
5IMDB entry: tt10554232 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
6Only 96 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Editing: Filip Dedić
Production design: Goran Joksimović
Costume design: Ivanka Krstović
Makeup / hair: Dušica Vuksanović
Runtime: 130 min · 2h 10m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Original language: SR
IMDB: Dara of Jasenovac (2020)
Rotten Tomatoes: 52% 🥫 Rotten
IMDB rating: 8.1/10 · 82,022 votes
MPAA: R
US box office: $52,786

Awards

1 win

Also by

Predrag Antonijević

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Community reviews

What people are saying

badelf2025-03-22
★ 9/10
There's a particular discomfort in discovering, after decades of historical education and over a hundred Holocaust-related films, that significant chapters of atrocity have remained invisible to me. "Dara of Jasenovac" delivers precisely this uncomfortable revelation, chronicling horrors at Croatia's Jasenovac concentration camp - a genocide I had never encountered in history books or cinema. Predrag Antonijevic's unflinching film follows ten-year-old Dara through what was sometimes called "the Auschwitz of the Balkans", where the fascist Ustase regime murdered primarily Serbs, but also Jews, Roma, and political dissidents. That such a significant murder camp could remain relatively unknown in the Western conscious speaks to the politics of historical memory. What distinguishes this story is not just its focus on a lesser-known atrocity, but its disturbing examination of Croatia's independent enthusiasm for mass murder, without direct Nazi management. "Dara of Jasenovac" functions as both historical correction and cold mirror. The film's most devastating insight is not historical but philosophical. Through Dara's eyes, we witness the seamless transformation of ordinary people into monsters. Unlike the bureaucratic, industrialized killing of Nazi death camps, Jasenovac reveals something more primal - the apparent eagerness with which humans will torture and murder their neighbors when given permission by authority. The film's power comes largely from its uncompromising realism. Antonijevic's direction, the haunting cinematography, meticulously detailed sets, and the extraordinarily naturalistic performances - especially from Biljana Cekic as Dara - create an immersive historical world that feels horrifyingly authentic. Cekic's performance is remarkable for its restraint; her watchful eyes become our lens into this nightmare. This movie raises the questions "How could this specific atrocity be forgotten?", and the more significant "What within human nature makes such cruelty possible?" Both these questions are terribly uncomfortable. The latter even more terrifying in the light of the rise of fascist power in the United States. That humans so readily inflict suffering on one another when ideologically sanctioned, casts the lens on the darkest side of our human nature. "Dara of Jasenovac" is difficult, necessary cinema that reminds us that the phrase "never again" remains hollow so long as significant chapters of atrocity remain unacknowledged and the human capacity for cruelty remains unexamined.

Production companies