Emilija Gašić
WOLF DAYS
Faced with menopause, Jelena turns to a folk healer who draws her into a series of increasingly ridiculous rituals that drive her to the edge of madness in search of her own liberation.
SYNOPSIS
Jelena, a middle-aged administrative clerk from a small Serbian town, struggles with the symptoms of menopause – insomnia, hot flashes, and chronic neck pain – while feeling increasingly unsupported by her husband Marko, a doctor obsessed with hunting a wolf. Tensions rise at home as Jelena’s relationship with her mother-in-law deteriorates and her son prepares to marry his pregnant girlfriend. After doctors dismiss her condition, Jelena, in pain and desperate, consults a blind elderly folk-healer who claims she is cursed. Jelena begins a series of rituals during the week of Wolf Days, gaining strength as Marko grows hostile. The conflict culminates at their son’s wedding when a mysterious night in the forest changes everything.
DIRECTOR
Emilija Gašić
PRODUCER
Dragana Jovović
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Non-Aligned Films
CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY
Istok Films, Restart
COUNTRIES
Serbia, USA, Croatia
Emilija Gašić
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Emilija Gašić is an award-winning Serbian filmmaker and photographer, born in Yugoslavia. She graduated with an MFA in cinematography from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and holds a BFA in film directing from the Academy of Arts in Belgrade. Gašić is an alum of Berlinale Talents and Talents Sarajevo. Her debut feature 78 Days was recently awarded the Vanguard Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival and the Discovery Prize at the Seoul International Women's Film Festival. It had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Bright Future section, where it was among the top twenty most watched films. It also won the Best Film award at Cyprus Film Days, Tofifest, the Innsbruck International Film Festival, and many others. Gašić has served as a jury member at the Festival of Auteur Cinema and the Pula Film Festival. As a cinematographer passionate about shooting on celluloid, she experiments with different film formats and has shot films in the United States, France, Norway, and Czechia. She is a Nikon Storytellers Award recipient and a finalist for the Volker Bahnemann Award for Outstanding Cinematography. Her work has been selected for Hollyshorts, Rooftop Films, the St. Louis International Film Festival, the Montreal Independent Film Festival, and others. Her analogue photography exhibition IN | BETWEEN traveled from Serbia to Hackney Studios in London and Culture Lab in New York City in 2021. She is a co-founder of Istok Films with Alex Wiske, and resides between New York City and Belgrade. She is currently developing her second feature Wolf Days with the TorinoFilmLab 2025.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Wolf Days is inspired by my encounters with many women who have been misdiagnosed, dismissed, and misunderstood within a deeply patriarchal healthcare system. This film seeks to uncover and challenge the taboos surrounding women’s health, especially menopause, and to expose the power imbalances that define both medical and personal relationships. At its core, the story confronts toxic masculinity through Jelena and Marko’s fraught marriage, showing how cycles of control and silence can be broken. Jelena’s journey toward empowerment unfolds within a secret society of women healers, rooted in ancient Balkan folklore, rituals, and collective memory. As she grows stronger, Marko becomes weaker, his authority slipping away. Blending mystery, thriller, horror, and dark humor, Wolf Days blurs the boundaries of reality and imagination, weaving a distinctive, culturally specific perspective into the folk horror genre.
Dragana Jovović
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY
Dragana Jovović is a producer from Serbia. She graduated from studies in French philology at the University of Belgrade and holds an MA in cultural policy and management from the joint master’s programme of the University of Arts in Belgrade and the University Lumière Lyon 2. She is the producer of The Load (Ognjen Glavonić, 2018), which premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, Depth Two (Ognjen Glavonić, 2016) and Yugoslavia – How Ideology Moved Our Collective Body (Marta Popivoda, 2013), both premiered at the Berlinale Forum, as well as Marta Popivoda’s latest film Landscapes of Resistance (2021) and Stefan Djordjević’s Wind, Talk To Me (2025) both premiered in the Tiger competition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam and won Heart of Sarajevo for the Best Documentary and Best Film of the festival. She is an alumna of EAVE (2019), Jihlava Emerging Producers (2022), Producer on the Move (2024), EAVE TTB (2024-25), and a member of ACE, EWA and EFA.
PRODUCER’S STATEMENT
I was immediately drawn to Wolf Days for its unapologetically feminist perspective on menopause – a life stage still burdened by silence, stigma and systemic neglect. The film challenges the persistent social tendency to render middle-aged women invisible, reclaiming this experience as a site of transformation, resistance and autonomy. Through its blend of realism, folklore and dark humour, it exposes how patriarchal expectations shape women’s bodies, relationships and sense of self, while celebrating a spark of female solidarity as a form of quiet political defiance. In the current context, where there are no active funding calls from the Film Center Serbia, developing this project through international networks becomes both a necessity and a political gesture – affirming the importance of supporting women’s stories even when institutional support is uncertain. I strongly believe Wolf Days has the power not only to resonate artistically but to contribute to wider conversations about gender, ageing and the right of women to define their own narratives.
Production company profile
Non-Aligned Films is a Serbian boutique film production company that focuses on working with the auteurs from Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, dedicated to pushing the boundaries of traditional cinema. It also strives to serve as a launch platform for the upcoming generations of young filmmakers from the region. Among the company’s most notable productions are Dušan Zorić and Matija Gluščević’s Have You Seen This Woman? (Venice Critics’ Week 2022), Ognjen Glavonić’s The Load (Cannes Quinzaine 2018), and Depth Two (Berlinale Forum 2016). In early 2025, Non-Aligned Films premiered three new works: Stefan Djordjević’s debut Wind, Talk to Me and Ivan Salatić’s Wondrous Is the Silence of My Master (both in the Rotterdam Tiger Competition), as well as Urška Djukić’s Little Trouble Girls, which premiered at the 2025 Berlinale.
Where are we at?
TOTAL ESTIMATED BUDGE 1.090.000,00 €
FINANCES PENDING
1.010.000.00 €
FINANCING IN PLACE
80.000 €
Production timeline
December 2025 - April 2027 Develoment
December 2027 - November 2027 Financing
November - December 2027 Shooting
January 2028 - July 2028 Post-production
August - September 2028 Premiere