God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya

In Macedonia, on 19 January they celebrate the Baptism of Jesus Christ (Vodici or Epiphany), priests throw a cross into a river or lake and the person who gets it first is blessed. In Stip in 2014 a woman got to the cross first, it was grabbed from her by a male contestant and the police were called. This was the inspiration for God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya.

Unfortunately, due to writing the wrong time on the calendar, I missed the first 25 minutes of the film and arrived at the point where Petrunya is in the river having had the cross snatched off her. While filmed by a TV crew the priest intervenes and she gets the cross back from the crowd of angry young men who think it is wrong for a woman to have participated and more importantly got to the cross first. Petrunya takes the cross home, has a fight with her mother and locks herself in her room to gloat over her victory (perhaps her first since graduating with a first-class history degree 10 years earlier). The police arrive and take her to the police station to "sort things out" - which takes the rest of the film.

The priest is there, insisting that Petrunya has broken "the rules", privately the police chief points out that the priest's "rules" aren't the same thing as the Law. The police chief attempts to brow-beat Petrunya about breaking "the rules" anyway while admitting that she is not under arrest but at the same time insisting that she has to stay. The arguments (or lack of them) go round and round, with Petrunya taking a passive but defiant stance and gaining in self-confidence. Outside a mob of angry young men and a TV reporter are trying to get into the police station.

Unfortunately having reached an interesting intersection of girl power, patriarchy, secular power, tradition, religion and angry youth (youth unemployment is over 40% in Macedonia) God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya can't find a satisfactory way forward, ending anticlimactically - which may be the point.

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Ian's rating 2.5/5