Surviving Earth

Director/ Thea Gajic
Stage/ Pre-production, shooting November 2023

CAST & CREW

Director/ Thea Gajic

Producers/ Aleksandra Bilić, Jamie Clark, Sophie Reynolds

Status / Production Film4, BFI

Years after fleeing military conscription during the Yugoslav conflict, Vlad (40) is building a community in Bristol, working as a drugs counsellor and pursuing success with his riotous Balkan band. But integration isn’t as easy as he hoped, and the trauma of his past life is difficult to repress. Can he overcome his demons and create a new life for those he loves the most?

Based on a true story, Surviving Earth follows Vlad, a Serbian immigrant who moved to the UK in the 90’s after fleeing the Yugoslav Wars. Once a heroin addict, he is now a drug counsellor living in Bristol’s creative community. Always one to make the make the most of a situation, he starts up a Balkan band with his friends from rehab to bring his roots and love for music to the city. But he is renegade by nature and finds England’s rigid social structures hard to live by. Although the band are excelling, he can’t help but feel oppressed. Vlad soon starts to ignore his responsibilities and his carefully rebuilt world begins to fracture. The hardest hit by his self-destructive behaviour is his only daughter Maria, the most important person in his life. But Vlad’s demons are circling, and as he struggles to reconcile his past with the present, he must find a way to keep them at bay or risk losing everything.