Pogana

1920s on a remote Dalmatian island. A woman, Pogana is sold as wife and mother to a Sailor and his five daughters. When her unlikely husband is lost at sea, Pogana is left at the mercy of villagers and cruel customs. She decides to marry Sailor’s mortal remains, his bones she fishes out of the sea.

The year 1922 on a remote island in the Mediterranean. Pogana, a beautiful tortured woman, is sold by her father to a recently widowed Sailor. She will serve as his wife and mother to his five daughters and infant boy. After the tragic death of his only male child, Sailor is lost at sea. Pogana is left at the mercy of villagers and cruel customs. They didn’t marry so the village sees her as an intruder. Torn between survival, raising hellish children and battling intolerance, Pogana finds an unlikely ally in the local Lightkeeper, an embittered war veteran. The two rejected, find in each other consolation and understanding. One day, Pogana finds a human bone in the fishing net! Day after day, human bones mysteriously appear in the net she pulls out of the sea. She believes that the sea is returning the remains of her unlikely husband. Pogana has no choice, she refers to the old folk custom, the black wedding. Once she puts the whole skeleton together, she will finally marry her husband's bones.

Director's note:
Pogana mixes realistic and harsh historical drama with motifs of poetic and even magical realism. Moments of great drama as in a Greek tragedy are intertwined with everyday human stories. It is a film with a strong atmosphere and stingy words. The film’s structure is fragmented, mosaic, anecdotal with thematic chapters mirroring the emotional states of the main character. Brutal daily island life is shown in an almost documentary style with wounds of WWI and the Spanish flu still fresh. It’s a life of isolation and outsiders hardly fit in. Conceived in a technique of black and white photography, the details of the world in the background are lost with the absence of colour and the attention shifts to the characters and their emotional state. The content of this film is a powder keg but not without a laugh. It’s a film about a woman who seemingly has no purpose or role in this world but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve life. She deserves a place in the world and she will fight for it.

Producer's note:
As a production company, we are very happy to be developing Pogana with Mardešić and Kapac after producing their (and ours) first feature film The Uncle. We are proud that our directors have decided, after The Uncle, which was conceived and staged as a provocative (and entertaining) psychological thriller, to focus their directing skills and screenwriting talent on creating a film world in order to communicate a topic that has never been more relevant on a global scale, and never more necessary on this our local, regional level. It is about a complex and often incomprehensible, illogical and frustrating relationship between a woman and society, the environment that surrounds her, which for that same woman can often be more toxic than patriarchy itself. In its cruel and exaggerated universe of the Dalmatian island, Pogana addressed all the recognizable motifs and pitfalls of global contemporary society, the consequences of which are even more painful to see with the stylistic departure planned for this film. This is precisely why we are convinced that our island of Pogana really has a European and even a world perspective and future.