To Hold a Mountain – Films – Visions du Réel

Biljana Tutorov & Petar Glomazić
Serbia, France, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia | 2026 | 105 min
Swiss Premiere
Language : Montenegrin
Subtitles : English, French

On the Montenegrin highlands, a shepherdess and her adopted daughter, haunted by the violent death of her mother, defend their mountain against its transformation into a NATO military training ground. Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić paint a tender and visually striking portrait of a community of women grappling with both internal and external structures of oppression – Sundance's 2026 Grand Jury Prize.

A high plateau floats above the clouds, impregnable. Mileva “Gara” Jovanović leads her herd along the steep paths to her summer pasture, nestled in the idyllic setting of Sinjajevina, a Montenegrin massif earmarked by NATO for the establishment of a military base. Just one of the challenges faced by this spirited shepherdess, whether astride her horse or sparring with a uniformed officer on a television set. But behind the spectacular backdrop of a Balkan western depicting the resistance of a mountain community, Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić expose a deeper, more personal wound. Portrayed by Nada, a teenager adopted by Gara after the death of her sister Mika in an incident of domestic violence. Through the care they give each other and the animals, beneath the drone of the helicopters, mother and daughter succeed in fending off a two-headed hydra: the military-patriarchal complex. To Hold a Mountain paints a delicate and sensory portrait of two generations of women standing up against deadly structures of oppression that endanger the living world to which they remain unwaveringly bound.

Emmanuel Chicon

Biljana Tutorov

To Hold a Mountain, 2026
When Pigs Come, 2017

Petar Glomazić

To Hold a Mountain, 2026