REQUIEM FOR MRS. J. / REKVIJEM ZA GOSPOĐU

Mrs J., a former administrative clerk, decides to complete all her tasks: she washes a sink full of dishes, goes to the store, and digs up an old family pistol. It is her late husband’s pistol. She is determined to kill herself with the gun on the anniversary of her husband’s death in a week’s time.

Mrs J. decides to go to a stonemason and hire him to place her picture on the tombstone, next to her husband’s. Afterwards, she goes to church for confession before Easter and returns a borrowed chair to her neighbor on the first floor.

Mrs J. decides to make peace with her pregnant older daughter Ana. For the first time, she visits Ana at the hypermarket. She confronts Ana’s boyfriend to tell him what it means to be a man in the house.

Mrs J. decides to collect her severance pay from the bankrupt factory where she spent half her life working. She collects her life insurance, and corrects a typo in her name on her birth certificate.

She is prepared to finish all private and administrative details so that she may commit suicide her way. In order to begin the process, she needs just one thing: a certificate about her employment over the past 20 years. In a country that is going through social transition, this will be highly complicated. Because living in transition is complicated. To die is even more complicated.