In a city, which looks like any city, two teenage girls — one introvert, the other extrovert — become friends.
The relationship seems ideal and intimate until something big happens to change everything.
Sisterhood (2021), a Macedonian drama directed by Dina Duma, was screened as part of the official competition during the 43rd Cairo International Film festival (CIFF).
The film reflects how social media is a dangerous tool that can ruin people’s life when used improperly.
What is special about the film is that it intensely and deeply featured characters’ inner feelings and it throws us in the life of teenagers and shows us how they think.
Jana (Mia Giraud) and Maya (Antonia Belazelkoska) are enjoying themselves in the sun at the beach.
Jana eggs Maya on to jump in the water from a cliff in order to attract the attention of Kris (Hanis Bagashov), whom Maya fancies. Maya jumps while Kris and his friends cheer. Then Jana told her that at least Kris knows that she exists.
Jana put on heavy makeup, wears revealing clothes and high heels. Although her character is different from Maya, the shy quiet one, they engage in what seems to be strong relationship.
But Jana is the dominant character, who knows all about Maya’s secrets, problems with her family, and what she feels at any given moment. All these Jana uses against Maya.
Maya is looking for true love, but unfortunately she falls for Kris, who is only interested in physical gratification. When she refuses to sleep with him, he soon hooks up with Elena. Jana encourages Maya to seek revenge.
They film Kris with Elena having sex, then publish the video on social media. Just one click turns the boy into a hero in his friends’ eyes. Elena, on the other hand, is judged a whore.
Elena’s life is destroyed with gossip, ridicule and bullying. She goes to fight with Jana and Maya but they accidentally push her from a high ridge, from which she falls to her death.
Maya wants to confess to the girl’s mother and the police. Jana threatens to kill her if she tells anyone about the accident. The relationship between the two friends has now changed dramatically.
Throughout the film, director Duma uses scenes of the girls swimming in the lake or their swimming lessons in the school pool. The fluctuating nature of water parallels volatile relationship between the two teenagers.
Sisterhood is a Macedonian-Kosovar-Montenegrin production, which, although set in an European country, tells the stories of many teens around the world. It sheds light on several important issues, including the state of loss in which teenagers live, indulgence in drugs and pleasures.
It also shows the discrimination between a boy and a girl if they have extra-marital sex — the boy earns popularity, the girl despised. Most importantly, the film foreshadows how social media has become a tool that some may use to destroy reputations and even lives.
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