After their father is drafted during the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, three sisters begin recording a Hi8 video diary from their rural home. They film themselves putting on make-up, picking cherries, playing games, arguing, and helping their mother in the kitchen. This fragile, intimate world becomes a kind of refuge—a buffer against the outside reality of sirens, bombings, and war. Director Emilija Gašić skillfully weaves together the viewpoints of the three sisters—each at a different stage of adolescence—to build a layered portrait of youth shaped by war. 78 Days not only faithfully captures the aesthetic, texture, and emotional resonance of 1990s home videos, it also reflects on how the camera becomes part of familial relationships. Through its close observation of domestic life and shared authorship, the film doubles as a subtle piece of technological ethnography—tracing how handheld media shapes intimacy and memory. (ML)
