After being selected at several festivals and having won several prizes, including that of best actress for Zorica Nusheva At the Seville European Film Festival and the Ecumenical Jury Prize and the Gilde Deutscher Filmkunstheater Prize at the Berlin Festival, it was during a ceremony held at the Opera during the 41st edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), that the North-Macedonian film God exists, his name is Petranya From director Teona Strugar Mitevska received the prize for the best film from Arab criticism for European films (The Arab Critic’s Awards for European Films).
Forty-two cinema criticisms of thirteen Arab countries have selected the best European film of the year from the twenty four feature films submitted by the EFP (European Film Promotion) which is an international network of cinematographic promotion institutes of 37 European countries, and the center of Arab cinema (ACC).
This prize aims to promote European cinema in the Arab world and to arouse the interest of cinema distributors and professionals for exceptional European films, while putting the film critics of several Arab countries under the spotlight and their important role in the opening of new perspectives and in cultural exchanges.
Mohamed Hefzy, President of CIFF, Sonja Heinen, CEO of EFP, Maher Diab and Alaa Karkouti, founders of ACC, gave the prize to Labina Mitevska, producer and one of the main actresses of the film and also sister of the director.
On this occasion, Mohamed Hefzy said: ” We are pleased to welcome the Arab criticism award ceremony for European films at the Cairo International Film Festival. I want to congratulate the actors and the winning film team and I encourage everyone to watch it in the section International festival panorama (Which is an off -competition section of the CIFF).
Petranya (Zorica Nusheva) is a young woman in her thirties. A graduate in history, she is unemployed, and spends her time under her duvet to eat (which makes her fat) and being harassed by her mother, who makes her reproach and would like to see her work. To this end, she won him a job interview in a factory. Petranya goes there, but ultimately to be said that without professional experience and with an unnecessary diploma, she could not be engaged. But worse, although she tried to be beautiful for this interview, the boss tells her that in addition to her physique is so ungrateful, that he could not even hire him for “kissing”. She then left the demoralized factory.
In Stip, the small town of Macedonia where Petranya lives, every year in January, the priest of the parish launches a wooden cross in the river and hundreds of men plunge to catch it. For a whole year, happiness and prosperity are assured to the one who achieves it.
That day, while she was going home, Petranya throws herself into the water on a whim and seizes the cross before everyone. Her competitors are furious that a woman has dared to participate in this ritual reserved only for men. The war is declared but Petranya is good: she won her cross, she will not return it. She hides her preciously and returns home.
Petranya caught the wooden cross
Only, the men of the city do not agree, and Petranya is dragged to the police station where the priest preceded it.
Petranya is not particularly believing. She took the cross by simple superstition. She was never lucky and wants it to change. She also wants her share of happiness. And she decided that whatever happens, she will not make this cross that she won.
A young TV host will try to win public opinion at the cause of Petranya. She includes the challenges of Petranya’s act and tries to take advantage of it to change things in her country.
It is from this simple event that the intrigue of the film will be built which will intensify little by little and ask several questions of a legal, societal and religious order.
First of all, why is Petranya held back to the police station? So did she break the law? So is it possible to stop it?
No, Petranya did nothing contrary to the law. She just went to sin a wooden cross. She did not steal it. No law prohibits him.
In addition, the tradition of the Church says that only men have the right to take this cross. Does this tradition have the force of law?
In a rule of law, what rule should be given priority? To the use and the canonical rule or to the law?
Great dilemma for the commissioner. He cannot stop Petranya, but he cannot resolve to release her. He will therefore try to convince her to make this cross. But she categorically refuses to do so. Why would she make this cross?
Petranya (Zorica Nusheva) and the priest (Suad Begovski) at the police station
On the other hand, no clear religious text prohibits a woman takes the cross, only tradition imposes it. What is the origin of this tradition and why does it only have men? Where are women in it? Why is the church misogynist? Which pushes the host to ask the question: what if God was a woman? If God was a woman, would these problems exist?
Besides, the title of the film in English ” God Exists, Her name is petranya »Play on words. “Her” is feminine. He therefore insinuates that God is feminine … It is a shame that the French translation does not express this.
Then, why not change traditions? Why should they be immutable? Who decided so? Why could women not be over these macho religious traditions and impose themselves?
Petranya dared. It dared to transgress the established rules. She dared to behave naturally and spontaneously as a man or as the equal of a man. What they refuse. The Church refuses him, the lawyer refuses him, society refuses him and especially men who feel stripped refuse it.
These men, moreover, attack the police station where Petranya is retained against his will. They want to recover the cross by force, this cross which according to them comes back to them by right.
The police are torn apart. Petranya has not violated any law. What to do in this case? If at the beginning, they were against her and wanted to convince her to return the cross and therefore return to pre -established order, when she was in danger, some of them did not only do their duty and protected her, but even sympathized with her. His strength of character was successful and forced their respect. We need women like Petranya to advance women’s rights.
The young officer Darko (Stefan Vujisic) and Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva) at the police station
God exists, his name is Petranya deals with gender equality and the place of women in Macedonian society. He shows how women are treated by the family, religious and politicians. All act only to defend their personal interests and their privileges.
This society which considers that the primary role of a woman is to take care of her home and her children, even when like the host, she seems emancipated, free and independent.
The film ends anyway with an optimistic note: when Petranya got in hand and broke the tradition, his chance turned. While at the beginning of the film, the possible employer had told her that she was far from desirable, in the end, a man offers her an appointment. A man who saw his courage and his determination and his human qualities, and for whom his ungrateful physique is not important. Whatever one could ask a question: should the emancipation of a woman necessarily go through the gaze of a man?
Neïla Driss
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