VALENTINA
Maximilian Feldmann | Macedonia, Germany 2016 | 51 Min. | OmeU
A slum in a Romani neighbourhood. Ten-year-old Valentina invites us to meet her family. What follows are bizarre anecdotes, daydreams and documentary observations – a film as lively as its roaming heroine.
“Do you want me to tell a story?“, Valentina asks. She is wearing army pants and a track-suit top. Her hair is wild with a tiny clip. She entrusts us with why she wasn’t born a boy, as it should have been. Nevertheless Valentina knows every detail of her family history: how her father won her mother’s heart with a bottle of juice and a pack of cigarettes, why her sister was held at gunpoint by her parents in-law, where her siblings were brought after they were caught begging. Together with her family of twelve Valentina lives in a run down one-room shack in the Romani municipality Šutka, in Skopje, Macedonia. Observations of daily live are mixed with Valentina’s personal stories, dreams with actual facts. Yet it becomes clear, that all of her story telling is nothing but preparation for her big dream.
