Karmadonna

Yelena (Jelena Ðokic) is pregnant and happy about it. Chatting to a friend on her mobile she’s interrupted by a call. The caller tells her to watch the boys in the park, where she is sitting, who were squabbling over a mobile when he claims to whisper into one’s ear causing one to run headfirst into a tree.

Then the caller inflicts terrible pain on Yelena and tells her she has no choice but to kill at his behest. This in turn means killing people with 100€ notes, a brutish cabdriver commits suicide and there’s an attack on a club where an influencer the caller (revealed to be a god) hates, spends a lot of his time. That action results in a vicious confrontation with the influencers father.

As the writer of A Serbian Film, Aleksandar Radivojevic carries a certain notoriety for one of the most controversial films of the past 20 years. Here he’s writer and director with mixed results.

The main problem is that its long and it really feels it. Some of the scenes tend to go on far too long and lose their effectiveness when the unpleasantness starts. And it is a gory film, in particular towards the end. By that time however a certain tediousness has set in as it starts to become repetitive.

Its highly stylised and fragmented so it fails to grip the viewer. There’s also a feeling that this type of film with its House That Jack Built grotesqueries has had its day.

It could still offend but the effect has little to do with what Radivojevic may be trying to go for which is an observation on corporate greed and lobbing them in with the criminal element as well a few others ‘deserving’ their fate.

Karmadonna received its UK premiere at FrightFest Glasgow, March 2026.