Boris Ler
Damir
Overview
After many years in Paris, Damir, professional saxophonist, returns to Sarajevo for a unique concert. One of his friends asked him to bring a gift to her best friend, Elma, who is waiting for Damir with surprises...
Cast
Reviews
2 min readThe box stays closed
I like return stories that refuse the parade. Someone steps off a train. Home has not been waiting, and it has not moved on either. The Package (2019), a short by Dušan Kasalica and Teodora Ana Mihai, lives in that uneasy middle.
Ten minutes. latestnetflix.com's take is that Damir comes back, and the city still knows him better than he knows it.
He is a saxophonist in Paris. The excuse is a concert in Sarajevo. The film barely cares about the concert.
It cares about the thing in his hands, the package of the title, and about Elma, who is waiting with "surprises." The word is playful, almost flirtatious. It also has an edge.
What do you get after years away? A warm welcome, or something that will not have a name until it is too late.
Listings file it as a comedy-drama. You can squint and see the gag. A man lugs an unmarked gift through streets he used to claim, unsure what he is walking into.
Audience Opinions
Limited evidence
"A quiet ensemble comedy-drama best approached as a low-key character piece."
The Package (2019) from Dusan Kasalica and Teodora Ana Mihai features Boris Ler, Marija Pikic, Mladen Nelevic and Alice Mihai in a Comedy and Drama register. Russian audience texture is minimal with only a couple of votes recorded and no broad consensus to lean on, so it lands as a niche title rather than a crowd-driven watch. latestnetflix.com's read is that as a viewer take, it plays best for patient viewing focused on interaction and tone rather than high-concept comedy momentum.
What viewers praise
- Ensemble-driven comedy-drama Centered on its four listed performers with a mix of Comedy and Drama for viewers who like character interaction.
Common complaints
- Quiet appeal Not suited as a big, fast-paced movie-night pick; works better for viewers comfortable with a slower, understated tone.
Recommended for
Viewers who enjoy understated comedy-drama Audiences drawn to ensemble-led stories
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsCannes locked two strangers in a Sarajevo pairing and told them to finish a short.
The 2019 Southeast Europe Factory, a Directors' Fortnight lab with Dominique Welinski and the Sarajevo Film Festival, matched five regional filmmakers to five guests. Montenegro's Dusan Kasalica drew Teodora Ana Mihai, a Romanian director based in Belgium. Their film is The Package, Paket in Bosnian. IMDb lists it at 10 minutes. Festival programs in Jerusalem and Montpellier print 13. It screened on May 15, 2019, at 4:45 p.m. at the Theatre Croisette, in a set of five Sarajevo-shot shorts, just before the Fortnight opened with Quentin Dupieux's Deerskin. latestnetflix.com's take is that an earlier Sarajevo notice had the working title Love Supreme.
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Boris Ler is Damir, a saxophonist back from years in Paris for one concert. A friend asks him to carry a gift to Elma, played by Marija Pikic, who has plans of her own. Pikic already had a Heart of Sarajevo acting prize for Children of Sarajevo in 2012. Kasalica told Vijesti the plot showed up while he and Mihai were looking for a story about leaving, and about the relationships that climate produces. They parked the whole thing against a big shopping center whose neon lights the wrecked neighborhood where Elma lives. "Social circumstances are clear if we also see the facade of a building, a torn-up street, a billboard, a plastic advertisement." He wanted the two of them to speak the blunt, fatalistic lines of French melodrama, in Bosnian, a tone he said local films almost never try. Alice Mihai is in the cast. Obala Art Centar produced. Dusan Grubin shot it. , 
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The lab cared more about the pairing than the parcel.
Welinski's note, quoted by the festival, said the exercise was two directors who do not know each other, and that five film centers from countries that had recently been at war were paying for the same shorts in Sarajevo. Film Center Montenegro, Film Center Serbia, the Sarajevo Canton culture ministry, the North Macedonian Film Agency, and the Slovenian Film Centre share the credits. Kasalica said the Cannes night went well and that the shorts would travel as a set and one by one. Jerusalem and Montpellier later played The Package alone. ,
Mihai had already made Waiting for August, nominated for a European Film Academy documentary prize in 2014. She later made La Civil. Kasalica went home to shoot his first feature, Elegy of a Laurel. What traveled was the pairing. Two people who had not shared a set, a mall lighting a broken street, and a Cannes sidebar that let the shorts on before the features.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.