Bigger Than Trauma - Movies | Art-kino Croatia

If you had survived a war and the past still weighed heavy on you, what would you do to regain the joy of living?

Twenty-five years after Croatian War of Independence, the surviving women have not healed. The justice system is slow, the legal process of fact-finding is agonizing and government support largely translates into tranquilizers and silence. Many families still live near the very men who raped and tortured them, and surrounded by trauma, they exist in the past, unable to move forward. Katica, Ana and Marija attend a pioneering program that invites both Serbian and Croatian women to try deep, reformative personal therapy together. Intimate cameras witness them examining photos of themselves before the war and skeptically trying physical touch exercises. Frictions within the group erupt along cultural lines, reinforcing past pain, but this is precisely what is required to cultivate acceptance and peace. For three years, they share their most private, damaging thoughts and by virtue of their own courage transform from collateral damage of an old war to more empowered women living today.