About the Screening

Through an extended talk with filmmaker Lidija Zelović, this edition of Cinema Under Siege turns the gaze inward, asking what artistic freedom means in the Dutch context. Excerpts from Zelović’s anti-war trilogy will serve as a starting point for reflecting on the meaning of artistic freedom and connected notions of democracy, resistance, and solidarity.

My Friends (2007), My Own Private War (2015), and Home Game (2024) observe the growing social polarization, militarization, and anti-migration politics in the Netherlands. Rather than offering a singular perspective on these issues, the trilogy holds space for ambivalence, disagreement, and contradiction.
 
The conversation with Lidija Zelović will be moderated by Nadica Denić.

About the Speakers

Lidija Zelović is a filmmaker based in the Netherlands. Born in Yugoslavia, she grew up in Sarajevo and moved to Amsterdam in 1993. She has worked as a journalist for the BBC and Channel 4 and continues to contribute regularly to various Dutch news outlets. Her latest film, Home Game (2024), premiered in the International Competition at IDFA. In 2025, she was awarded the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Documentary Stipendium.
 
Nadica Denić is a film scholar and curator focused on the entanglement of film and contemporary political developments, with specific interest in migration, conflict, and risk. She is currently an FWO postdoctoral fellow at the Free University of Brussels (VUB).

About Cinema Under Siege

In a program series titled Cinema Under Siege, the RPA Decolonial Futures (Universiteit van Amsterdam) and Het Documentaire Paviljoen explore the multifaceted relationship between cinema and (de)coloniality, exploring the creative tactics of filmmakers working under political constraints.