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A Film's Provocative Look At Bosnian War's Horror
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She acts in movies made in Serbia and Bosnia and does theater work both in Belgrade and Sarajevo. She has worked with Sarajevo-born director Emir Kusturica, who was nominated for an Oscar in 1985 for "When Father Was Away on Business." In it, Karanovic portrayed a mother in Communist-ruled Yugoslavia who tries to shield her son from word of his father's arrest for making a careless political remark.
In 2004, Kusturica directed her in "Life Is a Miracle," a French-Serbian film about a Bosnian town that persists in trying to build a railway even as war approaches.
Last year, she starred in "Go West," an offbeat, bitter comedy about a pair of gay men -- one Serb, one Bosnian Muslim -- who escape Sarajevo and go to a small village where the Bosnian tries to get by dressed as a woman.
"Our films take up these subjects without much hesitation," she said. "We can't compete with Hollywood on the level of hits. We work on the human level."
In Belgrade, human rights and democracy advocates filled the audience for Grbavica and greeted the film with a standing ovation.
"Grbavica" (pronounced GER-ba-vitza) tells the story of a medical student who is raped in her home and becomes pregnant with a girl.
"When I gave birth to her, I didn't want to see her . . . but on the second day, when I took her to my breast, I realized that she was the only beauty remaining in this world and so I kept her," says Esma, the character played by Karanovic.
Karanovic prepared for the part by reading war crimes testimony from victims. Few women stepped forward to tell their stories, she noted: "It is a shame in society. They are not recognized as victims." After the film's debut in Sarajevo, the Bosnian parliament voted to recognize raped women as war victims and provide them financial help.
The movie is set to open soon in Belgrade. Karanovic thinks it will be received peacefully. "We Serbs are in a crisis of spirit. We don't know who our heroes are and who are the villains," she said.
"In Serbia, we are not yet ready to tell the story ourselves," she went on, noting that no serious movie about the war had yet come out of Belgrade. "People will see the movie and talk about it. That would be progress. We have to move in small steps."
