Filmmaker Sanja Zivkovic on motherhood, the broken system of adoption, and seeing a story from all points of view in 'Cat's Cry'

'Cat's Cry' filmmaker Sanja Zivkovic sits down with VIFF Festival Programmer & Program Lead, Sonja Baksa, to talk about her global career spanning all the way from SFU's Burnaby campus to Serbia. 'Cat's Cry' first fell into Zivkovic's lap when the son of famous Serbian filmmaker Goran Paskaljević, Vlad Paskaljević, approached her with the possibility of reviving this moving screenplay following Goran Paskaljević's passing in September 2020. 

The work, 'Cat's Cry', is the true story of a couple fighting for custody of their granddaughter, who has been diagnosed with a unique condition called cat's cry syndrome. Zivkovic walks us through her approach to balancing male and female perspectives in features, her journey directing for a work she hasn't written herself (a first for the filmmaker), and how experiencing motherhood at the time of the film's conception influenced her approach to character work. Plus, a few words on her guilty pleasure, HBO's 'Sex and the City.'

This episode was recorded during the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival. 

This podcast is brought to you by the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Presented on the traditional and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations.