About film
“Will Be a Girl” examines deeply rooted patriarchal patterns through an intergenerational dialogue between the author Anita and her grandmother Gojka in rural Bosnia. Due to the upcoming process of transformation into a mother, Anita is excited, but also insecure, so she travels from Zagreb to her grandmother in Bosnia, with whom she has a close relationship, for advice and emotional support. Gojka is a wise, warm and bright woman who has lived her entire life in a small village in a patriarchal environment that often placed women in an inferior position compared to men and took away their voice. The messages that the author hears related to childbirth, motherhood and especially the upbringing of a female child encourage her to seriously confront them upon returning home, process them creatively and once and for all try to break the patriarchal threads that are passed down unchanged from generation to generation.
The author will keep some of her grandmother’s messages alive for her and future generations, while she cancels others and finds an alternative to them. The author tries to raise awareness of the transgenerational transfer of the grandmother’s values to her daughter, to the new female being who comes – to intervene in them. What she stayed with, what she “lost,” and how the grandmother reacted will be revealed when the author visits her again with the baby girl in her arms.
