Exclusive: to hold a mountainThe Sundance award-winning documentary, which is a strong contender for Oscar recognition, will soon reach US theaters.
Submarine Deluxe announced that it will debut the film directed by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazic at the Film Forum in New York on December 16, followed by a national rollout. Documentary – selected by Montenegro as its candidate for Best International Feature Film in 99th Academy Awards – Set to premiere on HBO and HBO Max in early 2027.
Set in the spectacular highlands of Montenegro’s Sinjajevina Plateau, the film focuses on Gara and his 13-year-old daughter Nada. According to the synopsis, mother and daughter “return to their ancestral pastures every summer, where they herd animals, gather herbs, and live in symbiosis with the mountain they call ‘Mother.’ But their fragile world is threatened when the Montenegrin government pushes forward with plans for a NATO-backed military training ground in the middle of this UNESCO protected landscape. Gara emerges as an unlikely leader in the battle to defend Sinjajevina. But as Nada grows into a young woman, the encroaching violence on the land raises questions about her past, her future, and the cycle of harm within her family that she hopes to break.
Watch the trailer of the film below.
Nada (left) and Gaara in ‘To Hold a Mountain’
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to hold a mountain Shortlisted for the IDA Documentary Awards and the European Film Awards. After being named to the shortlist of the year’s top Oscar contenders, it will next be screened at IDFA in Amsterdam and DOC NYC. At Sundance, where the film premiered, it won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary. Among other awards, it won the Grand Prix at Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland, Best Documentary Feature at the Sarajevo Film Festival, and the Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival. Tutorov and Glomazik won the Best Documentary Directors award at RiverRun in Winston-Salem, NC.
L-R directors Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazic
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The pair, who are life partners and filmmaking partners, spent eight years to hold a mountain.
“Nada was very young when we started filming, so we knew we’d be filming for years,” Tutorov told a documentary roundtable event earlier this month at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas. “We knew that we wanted her to be 18 and either accept or reject what we were doing. And during that time, we could really see all the potential qualities of this relationship [between mother and daughter]”
Gara addresses a rally protesting the militarization of Sinjajevina in ‘To Hold a Mountain’
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Gaara is a nurturing presence not only for Nada but also for the animals they both care for in the pastoral setting. She becomes the protector of the mountain, and unites her neighbors to oppose the government’s plan to turn it into a stage for military exercises. Gara lives in a deeply patriarchal culture, where violence by men can devastate women’s lives, yet as a matriarchal figure, Gara embodies the virtues of Sinjajevina.
“The community actually calls the mountain ‘Mother,’ because they know very well that it is more than a resource. It is their shelter, it is their companion. They talk to the mountain,” Tutorov said. “[Gara’s] The same love for land and NADA is actually at work in this political background story. And so it became really very interesting for us, on the one hand, to consider love as a potential political tool.
Nada (left) and Gaara in ‘To Hold a Mountain’
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to hold a mountain Directed by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić and produced by Biljana Tutorov. Additional producers are Petar Glomazic, Quentin Laurent and Rok Bisek. The film is edited by George Cragg. The cinematography is by Eva Kraljević, the sound design is by Julij Zornik and Samo Jarka. The original score is by Dresco Adzic.
Executive producers Megan Gelstein, Andrea Medich, Jean Tsien, Bianca Ona, Petra Costa, Sean Flynn, Ben Foley, Lucila Moctezuma, Chandra Jessie and Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Megha Aggarwal Sood, Shanida Scotland, Julien Etienne, Meadow Fund, Julie Parker Benello, Jenny Wolfson, Monica Parekh, Grace Le and Jenny for Inmate. It’s Warburg. The film is a production of Wake Up Films in co-production with Ardor Films, Les Films de l’Oeil Sauvage and Seewinger Film.
to hold a mountain Will be featured on November 17 as part of Deadline’s For the Love of Docs series (to RSVP, click) Here).
Watch the trailer of To Hold a Mountain here: