LaBOLatory 23 / Mission Avatar

As part of the Other? Europe film programme, on 26 November at 6 p.m., in the District’s Radionica building, location 4, the LaBOLatory 23 film by Aleksandra Jelić will be premiered, after which there will be a discussion about the treatment of violence against women in the media today.

According to the media, 23 women were murdered as victims of gender-based violence this year. Behind this, purely statistical, data is a huge social phenomenon of violence against women, which a lot is said about, but little is actually known. The director Aleksandra Jelić ventures into that unexamined territory full of prejudices, wrong and uninformed attitudes and stereotypes, but above all the unhealed trauma of the victims, with her documentary film LaBOLatory 23.

The film was created as a result of the Mission Avatar project, which was implemented within the Other? Europe programme arch of the European Capital of Culture, Novi Sad.

Together with girls who are wards of the Institute for Education of Children and Youth Belgrade, and who were sentenced with a mandatory corrective measure due to their actions and the young actresses the causes and deep consequences of gender-based violence were elucidated through a long dramatic process. The performance LaBOLatory 23 in October of this year, in which the stories and experiences of the victims were the frameworks for the active participation of the audience in the performance and the development of empathy towards the victims of violence, was also created out of the aforementioned dramatic process.

After the screening, there will be a discussion with author Aleksandra Jelić and actresses and performers Kristina Milosavljević and Tanja Đurić Josić – about the film and the treatment of violence against women in the media today.

Photo: Brankica Vukadinov