'Kin' - kinship, or 'kino' - cinema in Serbo-Croatian. 'Opti' - light, sight, or 'opt' - choose. '-ia' - a place, like utopia. "Kinoptia" asks how we may listen with solidarity to others whose pasts are so different from our own.
In the summer of 2019, I shot in Chicago, Sarajevo, and Granada, asking people in parks – friends and strangers – what was on their mind. Their stories were piercing, everything I'd hope for but could never expect – and somehow, too, they shared the theme of home and leaving. I wanted to weave their stories together while illuminating each, to find echoes between them, to play with the way we listen to others whose lives we know we can't fully understand.
Out of the disparate documentary footage, I crafted a shared fictional space, weaving their stories to reshape how we listen. When we know we cannot fully understand the experience of another, what does it feel like to listen, to listen with solidarity? "Kinoptia" explores this question in casual conversation and the story of Adila, who recounts her experience of the Bosnian war and her emigration in the 1990s.
