Twenty talented teenage girl actors help viewers explore the painful state of affairs in our community engendered by the arrival in our country of growing numbers of asylum seekers who come in pursuit of a better life and fleeing the violent conflicts in the Middle East. The drama by Vesna Perič “How’s It Her Fault None Of It Is Her Fault” won the Heartefact regional competition for the best engaged dramatic text in 2012.

A word of the author

“A while ago, media reports began to surface about a growing number of asylum seekers arriving from third-world countries affected by the Arab spring to the reception center in Banja Koviljača, and about clashes between asylum seekers and locals. That was what caused me to write this text, to contextualise it into the present moment, into family relations which are pretty ambivalent, and to reflect it all through the heroine, who is particularly vulnerable as a teenager. The drama tells about the rise of xenophobia in our society becoming unstoppable. It is actually about looking inside ourselves, questioning ourselves, instead of this constant negative and aggressive dialogue with that other who in xenophobia is always the enemy.”

Vesna Perič

A word of the director

“The principal character in the play is a thirteen-year-old, Mila, who is the youngest member of a typical Serbian family exposed to economic hardship and affected by social strife. The girl thus grows up in an environment marked by impaired moral values and interpersonal relations. Mila’s character as well as the other roles in the play – family members, local yuppies, politicians and asylum seekers – are played by teenage girls, making this production a priceless testimony of how the youngest members of society, vulnerable in so many ways, experience the brutal reality of our everyday life. Their personal perceptions lend a peculiar sense of vividness and authenticity to the play.

Anđelka Nikolić