‘Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day’ Director Ivona Juka On Hateful, Homophobic Reactions To Daring Oscar Entry, Winning the Frameline Audience Award [VIDEO]

Ivona’ Juka’s second narrative feature, Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day is set amidst the turbulent backdrop of 1950’s communist Yugoslavia when Josip Broz Tito reigned as dictator and homosexuals were persecuted regardless of their heroic pasts.

The narrative focuses on four close friends who, in their youth, join the Partisans to fight against the Ustashas (Fascists) and Nazis during World War II. A decade and a half later, in 1957, they’re all successfully working in the Yugoslavian film industry.  But they come under scrutiny by the oppressive government because of their sexual orientation.

Juka opens the film with a raw, honest and sexy scene between lovers Lovro (Dado Cosic) and Nenad (Djordje Galic). We soon learn they direct and write movies but are now forced to insert government sanctioned propaganda into their work. They’re not happy about it but want to keep working so they capitulate.

In their daily life, both men are accepted by Lovro’s parents and their relationship is an open secret. But with growing gay intolerance within the regime, they become targets along with two friends and colleagues, Stevan (Slaven Doslo) and Ivan (Elmir Krivalic).

An older official, Emir (Emir Hadzihafizbegovic), is placed in charge of overseeing their work by the powers-that-be and is ordered to sabotage them. The film’s harsh final sequences take place on Barren Island, a prison camp where homosexuals were stripped of their humanity.

Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day is a stark, authentic and unapologetic look at gay love and gay victimization. Juka isn’t afraid of juxtaposing unabashed passion and joy with harsh cruelty and betrayal. Her film is, ultimately, about defiance, sacrifice, hope and the importance of freedom, both personal and artistic.

This astonishing achievement was Croatia’s International Feature Oscar Entry last year. The 12-member Croatian committee unanimously voted for the film to be submitted for the 2024 International Feature Academy Awards. But the government cut the promotion budget to less than half of what was normally given so the film got lost in the highly-competitive shuffle. And the film’s realistic, if graphic, gay sex scenes seemed to alienate certain critics who made some borderline homophobic (and outrageous) assertions in their reviews. Ironically, Juka relied on the out gay actors in the film to aide in depicting these scenes for authenticity.

Juka has made several award-winning short films. Her feature documentary, Facing the Day, focused on prisoners in Lepoglava and won a host of awards.

The writer-director’s first narrative feature, You Carry Me, explored the relationships between three women and their fathers and was Montenegro’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submission for 2015.

Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day won the Audience Award at Frameline and is currently seeking distribution.

The Contending spoke with Juka about this cinematic gem, the homophobia she encountered making the movie, the offensive reviews that followed, the many obstacles in attempting an Oscar campaign–including a government that wanted her to remove it from contention–and the hurdles she is still jumping in seeking distribution because of the gay sexual content.