Aurora's Dream

What happens when beauty is asleep?
Aurora’s Dream explores the collective unconscious during a period of contemporary crisis. Individual participants share their most vivid and personal dreams. The subconscious narratives visually intertwine with the turbulence of our present era, bringing archetypes and motifs from the Sleeping Beauty fairytale to the fore.

  • Dragana Jovanovic
    Director
  • Dragana Jovanovic
    Writer
  • Dragana Jovanovic
    Producer
  • Danilo Lazovic
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Feature, Web / New Media
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 2 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 14, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Serbia
  • Country of Filming:
    France, Germany, Serbia, United States
  • Language:
    Croatian, English, German, Serbian
  • Shooting Format:
    webcam
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Beldocs
    Belgrade
    Serbia
    May 14, 2023
    World/National Premiere
    Serbian Competition, Best cinematography award
  • FID Marseille
    Marseille
    France
    July 6, 2023
    International Premiere
Director Biography - Dragana Jovanovic

Dragana Jovanovic is a filmmaker and researcher. In her work, she studies archetypes and the meaning of fairy tales in contemporary contexts of gender, desire, and violence, and explores collective and individual unconscious - especially dreams.

Her films have been shown at international film festivals such as Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Premiers Plans Angers, FID Marseille, Visions du Réel, Duisburger Film Woche, DOKKA, DRAMA Greece, IFFF Dortmund Cologne, Zebra Poetry, East Silver, Beldocs, among others.

Her graduation film ''On the Other Side of the Pillow a Rose Was Blossoming'' was nominated by the German Film Academy for the FIRST STEPS Award in 2018.

For the development of her first feature film in 2019, she was awarded scholarships from the Crossing Borders Programme of the Literary Colloquium and the Film/Video Artists' Program of Berlin‘s Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

In 2017 she completed postgraduate studies at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne as a DAAD alumnus, with a focus on film directing and writing.

In 2010 she participated at Sarajevo Talent Campus and in 2013 at Sarajevo City of Film.

In 2009 she graduated from the Faculty of Performing Arts in Belgrade and worked as a Producer, Casting Agent, and Assistant Director.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, the uninvited fairy curses the newborn princess, giving her death at the age of fifteen. Uninvited, rejected, neglected: fairy, goddess, psyche, nature.
The force of cruelty of the neglected thirteenth fairy matches the cruelty of the vengeful mother nature and the vengeful psyche/soul. As generous as it is dark, nature also gives us weather disasters, diseases, and wars. The curse of death is softened by a hundred-year sleep.

And what happens when beauty falls asleep?

My film explores the uncharted realms of our soul where we often retreat, but are hesitant to confront and express.

The unconscious serves as the most genuine and unrestrained facet of our personalities, while dreams act as conduits for significant aspects of our current reality.

Numerous participants from across the world are virtually
gathered to share their most vivid dreams, which occurred either
just before or during the pandemic.