Kino Lorber debuted today the trailer and poster for Murina, a coming-of-age drama that took last year’s Cannes Film Festival by storm. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, the film centers around a teenage girl who struggles with the woes of late adolescence, such as the desire to revolt, escaping reality, and sexual desire – none of which are made easier by a controlling family and the arrival of an individual who turns her world upside down.
The trailer for Murina reveals that it’s all about the main character Julija (Gracija Filipovic) as she spends her days swimming around and starts getting in conflict mode with her mother over her passivity to her father’s wishes. But it gets worse: the arrival of Javier (Cliff Curtis) makes the mother-daughter relationship deteriorate as both of them deal with their feelings towards the visitor.
Murina could just be another romantic drama, but the trailer suggests it goes the extra mile as the story gets some twists and turns. By the end of the trailer, which shifts tone to a darker thriller, we’re not sure about Javier’s intents, how far Julija is willing to go in order to test her own limits, and how well things will end for everyone involved. In other words, a must-watch.
Murina is the ambitious debut feature film from Croatian writer & director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, who based the story in her own short film Into the Blue. She co-writes the screenplay with Frank Graziano, who also makes his feature film debut. The movie was a standout at last year’s Cannes Film Festival: It won the Camera D’or for Best First Feature Film, and then it made rounds across several film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival.
During the Cannes festival, Kusijanović spoke to Deadline about her inspirations, how personal is the story, and revealed what the title represents:
“Murina is a moray eel. It’s the only animal that bits her own skin to free herself. For me, that was a metaphor of our protagonist. She’s ready to even sacrifice her own family to escape that place. […] I grew up on an island with my grandmother and my great grandmother. During the summers, I was free on this island and the contrast of this with stark, dangerous nature and hormones, that was kind of my upbringing and that inspired my short film Into The Blue. […] When I finished that film, I realized that I really wanted to stay more in that world. I started writing that same character, Julija, for the feature film. The world of chauvinism and family relationships and those dynamics started opening up because I was also spending a lot of time in Croatia at a time prepping the movie and the character really came to me there. Her desire for life, love, wanting more and wanting to leave her environment is probably something that is very close to me.”
Murina premires on July 8 at Metrograph, in New York. A week later, on July 15, it opens at Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles, with rollout to select cities.You can watch the trailer below:
Check out the official synopsis here:
On a remote island along Croatia’s Adriatic coast, 17-year-old Julija spends her days diving for eel with her domineering father Ante and watching other teens party on a nearby yacht. Julija bristles at Ante’s heavy handed cruelty and resents her mother Nela’s passivity. She longs for independence but is unsure how to achieve it, until the arrival of the rich and mysterious Javier seems to offer a way out. Javier is considering buying Ante’s land to build a resort, which would allow the family to escape their island isolation for the city. Once Ante’s employer and Nela’s lover, Javier flirts shamelessly with Nela and Julija, setting off a subtle battle of hypermasculine one-upmanship that pushes Ante to humiliate and control Julija even more. Flattered by Javier’s praise and stories of traveling the world, Julija sees him as the solution to all her problems. But does his affection portend freedom, or something more sinister?
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