Sevap/Mitzvah

Every now and again a true story emerges which is just crying out to be made into a film. There is an additional potency to Sabina Vajraca’s latest work because of the time at which it has come to public attention, as an Oscar-qualifying short, but it would be a remarkable piece of work under any circumstances.

Muslim Zejneba Hardiga and Jewish Rivka Kabiljo were friends from early childhood, and it was a friendship which would have life-defining consequences for both of them. They were both young women in Bosnia in the 1940s, when it was occupied by the Nazis, and this dramatisation of the story captures them at the very moment that Zejneba was forced to make a split-second decision. With soldiers suddenly rounding up her Jewish neighbours and taking them away on trucks, she grabs Rivka in the street and takes her back to her home, persuading her own family to put themselves at risk by hiding her. What’s more, with Rivka’s family still unaccounted for, there is another daring rescue mission on the cards.

What makes this story into something more unusual than the many tales of secret heroism from those times is the fact that decades later, when Muslims were being hunted in Bosnia and Zejneba had to go into hiding, Rivka, safe in Israel, stepped up and did what she could to return the favour.

To tell a story like this effectively depends on being able to capture the spirit of a place across time, and this Vajraca does wonderfully, even though the setting for the later conflict is very restricted. Details of costuming and make-up help to tell the story. Helena Vukovic is impressive as the younger Zejneba, and there are good performances all round. Whilst the structure, for all its impact, is a little limiting, Vajraca has done a good job of picking moments which allow some flexibility for the actors and give the story a more nuanced emotional arc.

In memorialising the conflicts of history, such tales of friendship might serve as a reminder that other choices are possible.