Once, when a very dear person died, I got up in the morning and brushed my teeth. I asked myself if this world still exists, is it possible that I still exist and brush my teeth, that everything is still in the same place as it was yesteday, as if nothing had happened. Because of my personal suffering, no leaf will fall from the tree. I thought about Esma in the same way. Her tragedy did not make the world stop turning.

Her life goes on, she is making a sandwich for her child, she laughs and makes jokes, irons, uses public transport...Whilst writing the screenplay for the film, and later while I was directing it, I observed things from that perspective. Christine Maier, the DOP, and I felt that the photography, with its movement and composition, should be non-dramatic in order to lead us into this world of everyday life under which volcanos are gushing.

We are as close to Esma as she allows us to be, at a distance she wants to keep us. What was also very important to us was to portray Sarajevo as one of the characters.