If these female characters actually deviated from misogynistic norms, even open-minded audiences would find them disagreeable and undesirable.

Unlike Hollywood’s depiction of the feminist heroine, the woman storytellers of the Balkans show audiences the harrowing underbelly of female experience.

Only by fully recognizing our current reality can we begin to imagine alternative futures.

These struggles are not unique to the Balkans, but present an entirely different reality to that of the Western women portrayed in Hollywood films.