The repeated ringing of an important phone call reawakens Lana's memories. In this teenager's mind, this phone is also responsible for erasing her country, history, and identity. This fictional essay immerses us in the dislocated fragments of the filmmaker’s life, against the backdrop of the social situation in a divided Yugoslavia on the verge of collapse in the 1990s, it embodies a reflection on the essence of memory and how it works. Splendidly shot in film and staged with ingenious restraint, this personal story, rooted in the filmmaker's experience as she leaves her country, reconstructs, in bits and pieces, an intimate and collective buried narrative. (HSB)

This film is presented as part of the Retrospective Iva Radivojevic: Imaginary Landscapes of Dislocation.

Presented with the support of Critical Media Lab McGill and McGill Refugee Research Group

When the Phone Rang