Take Me Somewhere Nice
When Alma travels from Holland to Bosnia by road she finds herself on an increasingly unpredictable adventure through the country’s scorching heartland.
On the edge of adulthood, Alma leaves her mother’s home in the Netherlands and travels to her native Bosnia to visit the father she’s never met. But from the start nothing goes as planned. Her cousin Emir gives her a frosty reception and mocks her easy life in the West. At the same time, undeniable sexual chemistry leads Alma into a passionate relationship with Emir’s best friend, the troublemaker Denis. As the obstacles mount, Alma stays fearlessly determined to follow her plan and find her father. She just has to figure herself out first.
High on the reckless energy of youth and the rush of adult discovery, the rebellious trio sets off on the adventure together, embarking on an increasingly unpredictable road trip. Over the course of the journey, Alma will learn to accept and understand herself, embracing all challenges that come her way.
The blueprint for the dry-comic style of Ena Sendijarevic can be found in her short film IMPORT, selected in 2016 for the Cannes parallel program called Quinzane des Réalisateurs. In a style borrowed from Pawlikowski and Kaurismäki, Sendijarevic tells the story of her own youth in 17 minutes: on the run from the Yugoslavia war, Ena, her parents and her sister were assigned a house in 1994 in Almen, a village in the east of the Netherlands with less than a thousand inhabitants. They were the only Bosnians in the area. “They didn't talk about it at home and I didn't ask questions. Only later did I start thinking about it deeper. Writing the IMPORT script was a kind of alibi for my parents to talk about it” she said later. Once working on the film, opinions about refugees changed in the Netherlands, according to the director: “From humanitarian aid to fortune seekers. That made me mad. We were not like that either, I thought.” The result is a nuanced work that drags 'the refugee' out of anonymity in a light-hearted way, and then provides it with humanity.
Curious about IMPORT? Click here to check out a teaser!