'All I want is a calm, good life with a man I love!' filmmaker Tatjana Božic exclaims desperately after the umpteenth relationship crisis. She just can’t hold down a lengthy relationship for some reason. What is wrong with her? Her love resumé reads like a travelogue through European culture: Božic went from the romantic Russian soul of Pavel via the German weltschmerz of Frank and the British reliability of Jacob to the Dutch level-headedness of Rogier.
In an ultimate attempt to keep the last man - with whom she has a child - Božic faces up to her exes, and above all to herself. In archive footage, family films and old photos, Božic relives her youth and her relationships. She films everything as she sees her old lovers again, even the intimate and occasionally painful conversations that follow. Božic is just as uncompromising when she registers the many quarrels with her present husband. Of course many people have advice for her: 'The problem is in your head, not in your men,' or: 'Keep silent and suffer if you want to keep your marriage.'
Happily Ever After is an open-hearted self-portrait of a woman stuck between the urge for freedom and the conventional ideal of true love, marriage and a ‘happily ever after'. Intimate street portraits of random women throughout Europe give this personal document a universal feel.
- Director
- Tatjana Božic
- Premiere
- World premiere
- Countries of production
- Croatia, Netherlands
- Year
- 2014
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 2014
- Length
- 83'
- Medium
- DCP
- Languages
- Dutch, Croatian, Russian, English
- Producers
- Boudewijn Koole, Iris Lammertsma
- Production Company
- Witfilm
- Sales
- Witfilm
- Screenplay
- Tatjana Božic, Alex Goekjian
- Cinematography
- Ton Peters
- Editor
- Boudewijn Koole
- Sound Design
- Jeroen Goeijers
- Music
- Alex Simu
- Local Distributor
- Cinéart Netherlands