Serbia, Winter 2004. Lazar returns home after ten long years of absence. He is a different man today: having regained his liberty, he has decided to free himself from the heavy burden of his past and to start a new life in a country that also seems to want a better future. The apartment where he formerly lived is now occupied by Jasna, a single mother who is raising her autistic 12-year-old daughter Jovana. Refugees from Bosnia, they have been squatting in Lazar's apartment for some time now. Jasna, whose husband never accepted their daughter's autism and abandoned them, also wishes to turn the page on a difficult past. Since mother and daughter have nowhere else to go, Lazar doesn't have the heart to make them leave. Little by little, among these three beings marginalized by society, a special kindship will develop...

Goran Paskaljevic was born in Belgrade in 1947. Between 1967 and 1971, he studied at the well-known Prague school of cinema (FAMU) under Elmar Klos and Milan Kundera. His first short film MISTER HRSTKA (1969), considered as “offensive to the socialist system and harmful to the social order”, was banned by the Czechoslovakian regime. The film, however, was viewed by Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel and Vera Chytilova, and Goran Paskaljevic found himself accepted overnight into the ranks of the New Wave directors.

He has made 30 documentaries and 12 feature films, many of which have been shown and acclaimed at the most prestigious international film festivals.

The rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia forced him to leave his country in 1992. With his French wife Christine, he settled in Paris in 1994, although he continued to go back for fairly long visits to Belgrade, where his mother and two children live.

In 1998 he went back to make THE POWDER KEG but his constant criticism of Milosevic's regime met with violent, menacing attacks in the official press. Therefore, he decided once more to leave his native land in search of a country where he could make his film HOW HARRY BECAME A TREE. He found Ireland.

He returned to Belgrade upon the collapse of the Milosevic regime.

Filmography:
2004 MIDWINTER NIGHT’S DREAM
2001 HOW HARRY BECAME A TREE
1998 THE POWDER KEG
1995 SOMEONE ELSE’S AMERICA
1992 TANGO ARGENTINO
1990 TIME OF MIRACLES
1987 GUARDIAN ANGEL
1984 THE ELUSIVE SUMMER OF ‘68
1982 TWILIGHT TIME
1980 SPECIAL TREATMENT
1979 … AND THE DAYS ARE PASSING
1978 THE DOG WHO LOVED TRAINS
1976 BEACH GUARD IN WINTER