Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Filmmaker Sabina Vajraca Is Helping To Change Our World
Stop worrying about how to pay your bills and focus on your art instead. I know, I know, this is a tough one, but hear me out. I come from a very responsible family and I was taught that I always had to pay all my bills on time and never live above my means. So I spent my 20s trying to balance a corporate full-time job that paid for my nice NYC apartment with making my art, which exhausted, and depressed me to no end. It took me until my early 30s to finally walk away from that safety blanket and while it’s been incredibly hard at times, it has also been so rewarding to not give all my time to a job I hate. Doing this in your 20s is easier simply because your body can still survive on ramen noodles and pizza while sleeping on floors and futons, which this choice may require at first. And, in my experience, people are generally more willing to accept (and help) you if you’re a starving artist in your 20s than if you’re doing it later in life.
As a part of our series about “Filmmakers Making A Social Impact” I had the pleasure of interviewing Sabina Vajraca.
Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sabina Vajraca immigrated to the U.S. as a war refugee. A natural storyteller, she started working in theatre as a teenager, eventually getting her B.F.A. in Theatre Directing and Stage Management. After graduation she worked in NYC, focusing on devised theatre and movement/experimental approach to Shakespeare and other Classics.
Her first film, the critically-acclaimed feature documentary BACK TO BOSNIA, premiered at the AFI Fest, played at over 30 festivals worldwide, winning Director’s Choice at Crossroads, and was featured in the top 100 of the greatest films directed by women by the BBC.
Since then she wrote, directed, and produced commercials, music videos, and over a dozen films including the multiple-award-winning VARIABLES, and the Warner Bros./USC feature period drama VOODOO MACBETH. She also assisted writer/director Max Mayer on his feature drama ADAM, starring Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne (2009 Sundance), and shadowed directors on MADAM SECRETARY and 9–1–1.
Sabina received numerous awards for her work, including the DGA SFA Grand Prize, the Alfred P. Sloan Grant, the Claims Conference Grant, the Stowe Story Labs’ Tangerine Fellowship, and nominations for the Student Oscars, Student BAFTA, and Humanitas Prize.
She’s a member of Film Fatales, Women in Film, and BAFTA, and an alumna of Ryan Murphy’s Half Directing Mentorship, and Almanack Screenwriters. She holds an M.F.A. in Film and TV Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Thank you so much for doing this interview with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit. Can you share your “backstory” that brought you to this career?
Thank you for inviting me! It’s great to connect with your readers.
I was born and raised in the city of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was then part of a country called Yugoslavia. Bosnians are very community and family oriented people, so my childhood was full of cousins, aunts, uncles, and neighbours (whom we treated as extended family), coming over at all times, minding everyone’s business, for better or worse. For a very shy introvert that I was, this was quite overwhelming at times, but it also gave me a great window into human nature and relationships, which in all my precociousness I soaked up to the max, and which I tap into to this day.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
My dad is a lifelong cinephile and growing up I was very much a daddy’s girl, so it was inevitable that I’d be exposed to films at a very young age. By the time I was 8 I had learned that there was such a job as a film director and I proudly declared I’d become one when I grew up. No one took me seriously but that only made me more stubborn in this pursuit. There were no Super 8 cameras or after-school film clubs in my story, however. Instead, I was exposed to Life in all its might, from war and exile, to poverty, many a loved one’s death, and PTSD, among many other, perhaps more common, obstacles. Most of which appeared insurmountable at times, seemingly created for no other reason but to sway me from my dream, but which over time I learned to recognize as great teachers instead, and which I fully credit for making me the storyteller, and the person I am today.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your filmmaking career?
In one of my early films we had a scene that required us to have an empty street in order to film it. We were filming this in NYC’s West Village, with no permit and no money, so doing this the proper way was simply not an option. While I was setting the scene up with my DP, my producer walked around and found a couple of traffic cones, which she put on either end of the street, making it look like the street was closed to traffic. We knew we had only minutes before someone figured out what we were up to so we worked super fast to get what we needed. Not fast enough for the NYC cops, however. They turned up within minutes, demanding our paperwork. My producer played the “oh I’m just a PA and the producer just stepped out to get crafty” card, buying us the 10 minutes we needed to film our scene before the cops kicked us out. I love this story because it confirms one of my mother’s life lessons — use people’s prejudices and assumptions about you to your favor. In this case, my producer was a young blonde woman and the cops were two middle aged men whose prejudices about blonde girls and assumptions about what a producer looks like saved the day.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
Some of the most interesting people I met came into my life not through film but through my personal journey in meditation and philosophy, which I’ve been on for the past 12 years. My entry into that was the School of Practical Philosophy in NYC, and my tutor Preethi Gopinath, who changed my life. One of the things I loved the most about this school, and about subsequent philosophy/meditation communities that I came across, was that there would be people from all walks of life in my classes, different ages, religions, politics, races, ethnicities, all united by their desire to better themselves, and by default, the world around them. It taught me to keep an open mind and meet people where they are, taming my own ego with all its biases and judgements in the process.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I’d have to say my parents. So many of my fellow artists come from families that do not see the value of what we bring to the table because our society tends to put money above all else and arts rarely make people rich, so they struggle to win their parents’ acceptance of their chosen paths. I was incredibly lucky to have parents who supported my dream even when it seemed crazy to do so. We came to the U.S. as war refugees, for example, with no money and no one to help us get up on our feet, but when it came time to go to college and I said I was going to study directing even though I was a straight-A student and getting a more “reasonable” degree and job would have been perhaps a smarter choice for us at that moment, my mother didn’t even flinch. She said we survived the war and we owe it to those who didn’t to live our lives to the fullest, and that includes going after our dreams. In the years that followed both she and my dad stood by me through thick and thin. This is an enormous gift that I truly hope all parents with artistic children will be brave enough to give, instead of pushing them into careers that alleviate their own fears at the cost of their children’s dreams.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One of my favorites is Abraham Lincoln’s quote about rose bushes and how we can complain about them having thorns or rejoice about them having roses. This pretty much sums up how I approach life in general. It’s so easy to focus on the things we do not have, or the hardships we endured. Misery loves company and you’re sure to have lots of friends if all you focus on are the thorns in your life. I was very much in this camp for a big chunk of my early adult life, thanks to my wartime trauma. But once I started focusing on the roses, everything changed. I’m not naive — I know Life is very thorny (if you will) more often than not — but I work really hard on remembering that it also contains incredible beauty and goodness, and seek to find and cultivate those above all.
I am very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?
We all write what we know. So if you’ve always been in the place of privilege and power, it’s hard to truly comprehend what it’s like to be on the other side of that. White men have been in power and have dominated our narratives for a very long time. Among them have been some truly wonderful storytellers, so this is not a diss against the entire group of people. But there have also been way too many who simply rehashed old stereotypes, propagating biases, and, in terms of female characters, creating shallow, male-fantasy versions of women who don’t really exist. This is damaging on so many levels, the biggest of which is the fact that the stories we ingest on a regular basis become a lens through which we see the world. Most of us get our stories through films, TV, books and media, even if they come through other people’s mouths. We’re all rehashing the same messages and after enough repetition, our brain wires them into our subconsciousness as the Truth. And too few of us learn to question and change them, even if they destroy us from within. So if the only stories we’re exposed to are based on fear and/or ignorance of the storytellers, we’re basically feeding ourselves junk and then wondering why we’re feeling like crap. Giving a voice to diverse storytellers gives us a chance to rewire those neural pathways on a collective basis. To give our brain some new, healthy choices to chew on, and even if they at times seem too spicy for our blood, we at least now know the truth of that experience instead of someone’s (often clueless) interpretation of it. And, funny enough, I’ve found that the more diversity we’re exposed to, the clearer it becomes just how similar we are (even with our many differences). Which, in turn, makes us all less afraid of “the other” we were taught to fear for way too long.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
One of my passion projects is a feature neo-noir crime thriller set in the Bosnian immigrant community in Florida, called FOR BURAZ. It’s my exploration of the generation of refugees who, like me, came to America as children, and how the choices they made in those early years affect them now, 20+ years later. It’s a personal story about my own community, with a bigger, universal message that I feel all immigrant / refugee communities will see themselves in. My reps are out with it now looking for financiers and production companies to come onboard, so hopefully I get to make it very soon.
I’m also looking to turn SEVAP/MITZVAH into a feature since there is so much more to the story that I had to cut out for the sake of time, and I believe that story needs to be shared on the bigger stage, which features provide.
Which aspect of your work makes you most proud? Can you explain or give a story?
One of my main artistic guides is a quote from Stephen Gyllenhal that said that the artists’ job is to disturb the comforted and comfort the disturbed. I remember reading it years ago and feeling it in my heart as the Truth. I’m the most proud of my work that fulfils this calling, especially the comforting the disturbed part. BACK TO BOSNIA is a perfect example. I made that film as a way to process what happened to my family, and to other families in this part of Bosnia, which was largely kept out of the media, and therefore unknown to the general public. I wanted to give a voice to all of us who were silenced during that time. To this day I receive emails from total strangers who reach out to tell me how the film made them feel seen and understood, and how it finally gave them a way to convey their trauma to those in their lives who may not have been able to comprehend it thus far. And it’s not just the Bosians who send these. I received a lot of them from U.S. Army veterans who were stationed in Bosnia during the war, who’d tell me that my film finally gave them a way to examine their trauma from that time. These letters always move me to tears and make me immensely proud and happy that I could help in such a way.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Go to college in the city where you want to live after you graduate. I went to University of Central Florida in Orlando for my BFA and while I enjoyed that program and made some lifelong friendships in those years, any professional connections I made were moot once I moved to NYC after graduation, and I had to start from scratch.
- Stop worrying about how to pay your bills and focus on your art instead. I know, I know, this is a tough one, but hear me out. I come from a very responsible family and I was taught that I always had to pay all my bills on time and never live above my means. So I spent my 20s trying to balance a corporate full-time job that paid for my nice NYC apartment with making my art, which exhausted, and depressed me to no end. It took me until my early 30s to finally walk away from that safety blanket and while it’s been incredibly hard at times, it has also been so rewarding to not give all my time to a job I hate. Doing this in your 20s is easier simply because your body can still survive on ramen noodles and pizza while sleeping on floors and futons, which this choice may require at first. And, in my experience, people are generally more willing to accept (and help) you if you’re a starving artist in your 20s than if you’re doing it later in life.
- There is no such thing as meritocracy in this business. If you’re a good student who always did their homework on time and worked hard to get that A (nerds unite!), you’ll have a hard time adjusting to this industry. Traditional school structure teaches us how to be good corporate employees, where hard work and toeing the line is rewarded by raises and promotions. In this industry you can work as hard as humanly possible, and be as good as you can ever be in your field, and still not get ahead. It’s a business of 50% hard work and talent and 50% luck. Luck meaning getting the right offer from the right person at the right time. You need all of it to hit it big. Which brings me to…
- Say Yes, even if it doesn’t look like a part of your path at first. I was a very calculated young person. I thought I knew exactly what I needed to do and how I was going to get where I wanted to be. I made rational choices and did everything “right” (see point #3). And nothing worked out how I wanted it to. Ha! So I say relax and go with the flow more. Keep an open mind and jump into things even when you don’t know where they may lead. Within safety, of course. You’re more likely to come across the luck part of that equation by doing this. Fortune favors the bold and all that. And worst case, you had an adventure and met some interesting people along the way. Which is fantastic fodder for a storyteller, so no harm done.
- Beware whose advice you take. Look at the person giving you advice (including me at this moment!). Do you want to be them? Have their life? Their career? If no, why are you listening to them? If yes, is it realistically possible for you to do so, or is their life/career largely thanks to things you have absolutely no access to (i.e. wealth, famous and/or supportive parents, partner, unique talent you don’t have, etc.)? If you find that their circumstances are absolutely nothing like your own, their advice is irrelevant, so thank them kindly and forget everything they said. Theirs is not your path. Go forge your own.
When you create a film, which stakeholders have the greatest impact on the artistic and cinematic choices you make? Is it the viewers, the critics, the financiers, or your own personal artistic vision? Can you share a story with us or give an example about what you mean?
As a writer I am very much at the mercy of my characters. I will let an idea brew in the back of my mind sometimes for years, until I feel the time is right to put it on paper. Once I start writing, however, it basically feels like all I do is take dictation from the characters running around in my head. Very often, when I’m in the thick of it, they’ll wake me up in the middle of the night demanding I write that one scene, or a whole act, immediately, and over the years I’ve learned to obey them no matter what. Sometimes I’ll read what I wrote in those nightly visits and won’t recognize my own writing. It’s surreal.
When it comes to bringing the script to life, I do my best to balance my loyalty to my artistic vision with my desire to tell a story in a way that my audience will understand it. What I mean by that is that I will not back down from my vision, but I do recognize that I am making movies for an audience and not just for myself, and will listen closely to any consistent feedback that tells me something may be off. One of my professors in film school drilled into us that the worst thing you can do is leave your audience confused and I do my best to avoid that, which sometimes requires me compromising on my original vision.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Haha. What a great question! Well, when it comes to change of that scale I believe the best you can do is start from your own little corner of the world and see how it spreads from there. So in this case I’d love to find a way for artists to be financially supported in a way that allows us to create our art without having to worry about basic necessities like food and rent. We talk about diversity a lot but we very rarely, if ever, add financial/economic diversity in the mix. In film and TV especially it often feels like only those who have a trust fund and/or rich friends and family can stay in this game long enough for their work to be recognized. So unless you hit it off with your first project, you are left with a) find a day job that takes away all your energy and renegades your artmaking to a glorified hobby, b) live below poverty line for years, which makes it hard to have a family or even a comfortable home, or c) quit and try not to be insanely jealous of all the people you went to school with who make it look so easy on Instagram. Ireland is currently running a universal basic income pilot program specifically for the artists and seeing great results. I see no reason why we can’t find a way to do the same. And I do believe this would bring good to folks outside of the arts too since, as we discovered during the pandemic, when life gets tough what gets us through it is art.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂
I’m gonna be bold and say a billionaire who wants to become a patron of the arts in the same way that the Medicis did back in the Renaissance (financing art for art’s sake and not for profit alone), and who would be interested in financing my current and future movies in this way.
If that person is not available 😉 I’d also love to meet Steven Spielberg and talk to him about producing the feature version of SEVAP/MITZVAH. And Natalie Portman to discuss another project that is close to my heart and that I believe she would be perfect for, both as an actor and a producer.
How can our readers further follow you online?
My socials and website:
IG @sabinalovestrees
FB @SabinaVajraca
And for Sevap/Mitzvah:
IG / FB @sevap.mitzvah.film
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Thank you very much!
Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Filmmaker Sabina Vajraca Is Helping To Change Our… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.