‘Don’t Worry, Sári’ Questions Familial Responsibilities and Urges One to Preserve Oneself

variety.com:

Savina Petkova Being a family member is a role that changes all the time. Hungarian filmmaker Sári Haragonics has been reflecting on these shifts based on her own experience, losing her mother 13 years ago.

In her graduation short “Coming Face to Face,” shot three years after her mother’s death, Haragonics intertwined home-movie footage with scenes of a summer holiday with her father and brother, as they deal with grief and guilt.

Now, 10 years later, she is in the advanced stages of another project piecing together how familial dynamics morph over time. “Maybe it’s the next step after grief,” says Haragonics, describing the project to Variety before Thessaloniki Documentary Festival’s Industry event. “Don’t Worry Sári” was pitched last week at the Agora Docs in Progress and won the 119 Marvila Studios Award for sound mixing services.

Haragonics’ feature debut, “Her Mothers” (co-directed with Asia Dér), premiered at Hot Docs in 2020 and was produced by the Hungarian Campfilm through Marcell Gero and Sára László, who was behind “Natural Light,” the Hungarian winner of Berlinale 2021’s best director prize.