Does It Hurt? – The First Balkan Dogma

In this debut by Aneta Lesnikovska, who originally came from Macedonia but now lives in Holland, reality is based on fiction and vice versa. The director translates her own life and that of her friends to a fictional situation. Most of her friends are actors and film makers who do everything but act and make films. There is no money, no fund that makes film making possible in a country like Macedonia, so she sets to work according to the rules of Dogma.
Not just to help her friends find some work, but also to fulfil her own desire: to make her first full-length film. She lies to her friends that she has found foreign producers who are willing to finance the film. They have to wait for the Danish producers, who never come. In the meantime, she keeps researching and asks all her friends to tell their life stories. The whole process is filmed and what was once intended as preparation turns into the film itself. The distinction between fiction and reality is impossible to define in the end.
Does It Hurt? is the first Balkan film shot according to the rules of Dogma, made to mark the 10th anniversary of the Dogma manifesto. And maybe even more than a formal Dogma drama, Does It Hurt? is a personal, refreshing and amusing document about the film maker and her friends. (SdH)

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