Ivana the Terrible ( Ivana Mladenovic, 2019)

Reviewed by Brittany Carriger viewed at the AfI Fest 2019

I am a sucker for auteur guerrilla cinema made on a shoe strong budget by a powerful female lead . Ivana Mladenovic portrays herself, in this  autobiographical film about her own life in her home town.

She is in a relationship with a young man far to young for her, her parents and grandmother are criticizing her life choices and she is living on their couch rent free.

The city she is born in wants to give her a key to the city, and all she wants to do is finish a project without dying of a pathological illness that she has obviously manifested from stress and anxiety.

It is revelatory of my generations issue with intimacy, and lack of roots, and yet it interacts with Ivana’s family’s need for this generation to embrace their roots. Mladenovic takes auteur cinema to a healthy limit in that she doesn’t exploit her family or community but rather works with them to create art in the frame and structure they have created for her. If anyone deserves high praise it is the loving a supporting community that champions around Mladenovic as she so bravely and brassly experiments with cinema on the international stage.

Ivana Mladenovic as herself in Ivana the Terrible