Modes of genre and gender in the film God exists, her name is Petrunya (Teona Strugar Mitevska, 2019)

Abstract

This essay examines the paradoxes that directly or indirectly permeate the Macedonian feature God Exists, His Name is Petrunya: a film with national brands and, at the same time, registered in an international circuit, in a globalized audiovisual production ecosystem; the penetration of Eastern European narratives in Latin America; the violence of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia as a political and cultural mark of the new-old States after the Government of Marshal Tito and the possible mediation between present and past. It also addresses problems such as machismo and abuse, on the one hand; and the leading role of women, on the other. By working with the concepts of genre and gender, the article highlights that, in cinema, melodrama, thriller and Woman's film are articulated, as genres, in the construction of a narrative in which that the figuration of women plays both a disturbing and a mediating role.