Teona Mitevska Preps Sequel to ‘God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya’

North Macedonian filmmaker Teona Mitevska (“Mother”) is prepping a sequel to her satirical drama “God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya,” which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in 2019, the director revealed at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Written by Mitevska and Elma Tataragić, “Petra Doesn’t Want to Die (Anatomy of Masculinity)” is the story of a rebellious teenage feminist from Belgium who, despite being diagnosed with anorexia, bipolar disorder, OCD and trichotillomania, remains strong, determined and lucid in her conviction to do what she believes she must: leave this world.

That impulse takes her to North Macedonia, a country that seems to the Belgian teen to be stuck in time, if not at the ends of the Earth. There she meets Nenad, a millennial incel living in the provincial town of Makedonska Kamenica, who forges an unlikely pact with Petra, offering to help her take her own life.

Drawing a connection with the earlier dramedy “God Exists,” Mitevska described “Petra Doesn’t Want to Die” as “a continuation, a reinterpretation, or a counterpoint to” its predecessor, which won the Ecumenical Jury prize after its premiere in Berlin. 

“God Exists” followed frustrated thirtysomething Petrunya (Zorica Nusheva), a determined yet endlessly put-upon woman still living with her parents in the dead-end Macedonian town of Štip. After throwing herself into an annual Orthodox ceremony traditionally reserved for men, she provoked a fiercely misogynistic backlash from the community. But Petrunya unapologetically stood her ground, setting her apart from —  and at odds with — “a patriarchal Macedonia in the grips of bullying machismo and hidebound religion,” as Variety’s Jay Weissberg wrote in his review.

“Ten years after ‘God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya,’ here we are: Macedonia, 2026,” Mitevska told Variety in Sarajevo. “A single question stays imprinted in my head: Where are the Petrunyas of today?”

A sympathetic portrait of generation alpha, or what she dubbed “the anxious generation,” “Petra Doesn’t Want to Die” is “a response to and a testament to the power of new generations and their refusal to accept hypocrisy and involuntary/voluntary submission as the only remaining option.”

“In a world where young lives are like apples falling from trees, with alarming suicide rates rising daily,” said the director, “where future job prospects are not what they were, and the influence of the algorithm and social media paralyzes the agency of the individual and renders it to voluntary submission, the haunting question is: What is left for Petra [and her generation] to do?”

Mitevska said “Petra Doesn’t Want to Die” was inspired in part by a Q&A session during the promotional run of “God Exists,” when an audience member in a small German town asked, “Why are these men so angry?”

The question sparked a curiosity about the manosphere and its many offshoots and subcultures: the men’s rights movement, androphilia, paleo masculinity and other adherents of a “red pill philosophy” that “concentrates on restoring man’s natural capacity,” Mitevska said. That, in turn, led her to the character of Nenad, a proud Macedonian man and member of the Legion of Truth, a distinctly Balkan interpretation of the American MAGA movement. 

“In his attempt to reassert himself, to affirm his masculinity, he is ready to do anything,” said the director. By contrast, Petra is a willful woman marked by “her strength and defiance.” The film explores what happens when those two worlds collide, telling the story of “two people who are complete opposites and who, in exceptional circumstances, in the very heart of chaos, find common ground,” Mitevska said, adding: “Through the study of masculinity, I also examine femininity, and vice versa.” 

Mitevska is kicking off a busy week at the Sarajevo Film Festival. Unspooling in the festival’s main competition is “Skateboarding Is Not for Girls,” from North Macedonian debutante Dina Duma, which premiered at Tribeca and is produced by Sisters and Brother Mitevski, the production company co-founded by Teona and her siblings Labina and Vuk. 

Meanwhile, in the CineLink industry section’s drama strand, Mitevska and Slovenian filmmaker Sonja Prosenc are pitching “Little Yugoslavia,” a dark comedy-horror series set in a post-socialist apartment complex where residents vanish without a trace, and two vampire queens are on a mission to purify the world.

As Variety exclusively revealed, Mitevska is also partnering with French filmmaker Céline Sciamma (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) and others at the Balkan fest to launch Sister Sister, an initiative that looks to reshape the role of women in the film and TV industries and create an inclusive and sustainable screen sector.

Mitevska’s last film, “Mother,” which starred Noomi Rapace as a young Mother Teresa, opened the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival last year.

The Sarajevo Film Festival runs Aug. 14 – 21.