Private Project

Mother Europe

Road trip through the periphery of the EU shows present-day Europe through the eyes of a much-travelled six-year-old, wise beyond her years. A fresh look at this old continent: shooting from the hip and free from sentimentality, young Terra questions the usefulness and purpose of borders.

  • Petra Seliškar
    Director
  • Petra Seliškar and Terra Ferro Seliškar
    Writer
  • Brand Ferro
    Producer
  • Terra Ferro Seliškar
    Key Cast
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Mama Europa
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Web / New Media
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 30 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    June 22, 2014
  • Production Budget:
    300,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Slovenia
  • Country of Filming:
    Croatia, Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of
  • Language:
    English, Macedonian, Slovenian
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Best Documentary - Tuzla Film Festival 2013
  • Best Documentary Director Peace Award - Gothenburg Indie Film Fest 2014
    gothenburg film f
Distribution Information
  • Petra Pan Film & Demiurg
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Petra Seliškar

Petra Seliškar & Brand Ferro Both passionate documentary filmmakers devoted their work entirely to documentaries and little life pleasures. Petra was born in Ljubljana Slovenia ten years after Brand in Skopje Macedonia. They have been working in the film industry for some time… In 2003 they established their production company, Petra Pan Productions in Slovenia and in Macedonia. In 2010 the also established a unique festival of creative documentary film Make dox in Macedonia.

Brand Ferro and Petra Seliškar work as creative tandem ever since. Their creative strength can be seen in their documentary ”The grandmothers of revolution”, that has been selected for IDFA ( International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) Joris Evens competition and has traveled allover the world reviewing may awards. In their previous film witch combines three different stories shot in Cuba, Macedonia and Slovenia with different political and historical backgrounds in a truly creative way.
Their previous films include:
“Turkish Tea”, “The grandmothers of revolution”, “Mostar united“,

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Director Statement

Mother Europe is in many ways the second part of the film “The Grandmothers of revolution “,a film that Brand Ferro (DOP) and I ( Petra Seliškar) made almost 7 Years ago. I might say I took my time for my Mother Europe. Believe it or not I worked very hard all this years to finish it. It is a great challenge to make a film and being a parent. The idea started soon after our film “The Grandmothers of revolution” was made. But back then it was a real problem for the two of us to travel I am Slovenian and he is Macedonian. In this period Slovenia became part of EU and entered Shengen. It is hard to imagine now that all Viza's are gone, how it was. Brand needed a visa for every country apart from his fathers home Cuba and Balkan country’s with exception of Slovenia. Back then having a Macedonian citizenship was as close to living in ghetto - but a nice one. Visa application procedure was a day long waiting que in front of Embassies, humiliation from self-sufficient bureaucrats working in Embassies. It was an endless struggle for being able to travel with my partner.
We made a film “ The grandmothers of revolution”, we give birth to a child Terra, we travelled, we created many films, series, museums and made a documentary festival,…And now we came to the point when Terra our daughter is 6 years old. The grandparents from our previous film died shortly after the film was completed.
6 years latter the main protagonist are not the grandparents but their great grand child Terra. This child already understands what she is made of. The inspiration came from Terra , to follow her simply and not to make a film about Balkan frustration or what was happening to us during this 6 years. But it was a big and difficult task to swallow the anger and see our film in a new way. In Mother Europe not in Visaless as we call this film in working title.

Regardless of a strong political content and graphically – historically unkow situation to most Europeans my intend is to show personal perspective. The traveling and relationship that we have in front and behind the camera as mother daughter and father. As filmmakers family, director and director of photography and our child.
The characters we meet in the film do not show as borders , they are the good examples of the damage that borders can make to people in the past and nowadays. How can one express that the biggest problem of the border is not taking your neighbors land, language, the right of identity or nationality- it is as Terra says in the film - knowing that border exists. “Why do you know what is border? Because I am human.“
Nature already divided courtiers in some significant way – by sea, rivers, mountains and lakes . Still there is enough space for all the people of this planet to live a respectful life, but we should take better care of each other.