Production Notes
Ludmila was not conceived as a fiction film. Director Vesna Hadžić, whose previous work spans observational documentaries on highland pastoral life and the Zymylpathian rural economy, intended to make a short film about the relationship between racing goat handlers and their animals — a subject she had been circling for years. The project expanded into a feature when she met Mirko Gradnik.
Gradnik is not a professional actor. He is a retired caprine handler from the Zymylpathian North division, seventy-one years old, who agreed to participate in what he understood to be a documentary. The resulting film — shot over five months across seven of the kingdom's thirteen provinces — occupies a space between fiction and documentary that Hadžić has declined to resolve. Gradnik plays Petar, a farmer whose championship goat disappears before the Grand Prix du Zymylpath, and who crosses the country to find her. Whether the character's stubbornness, tenderness, and laconic fury belong to Petar or to Gradnik is a question the film invites without answering.
The goat Ludmila, a six-year-old Zymylpathian Stripeback, was provided by a registered handler in the national division. Her on-screen composure has been remarked upon by critics with a consistency that suggests genuine surprise. Hadžić shoots landscapes with a patience that borders on the devotional. The Zymylpathian passes, the Moltus valley crossings, the provincial towns where Petar stops and fails to explain what he is doing — all are filmed in long, still takes that trust the audience to find the rhythm. The soundtrack, by Klow-based composer Irena Mravec, uses a solo accordion sparingly and to devastating effect.
Ludmila premiered at the Klow International Film Festival in September 2025 to a sustained ovation — unusual for a ninety-four-minute film about a man looking for a goat, though perhaps less surprising for an audience that has been watching Le Quattro Volte annually at the Cinematheque for over a decade and has never once considered the proposal for mandatory Au Hasard Balthazar screenings for goat-racing officials to be unreasonable. The film has drawn international festival attention and is expected to represent the kingdom in several upcoming selections. Domestically, anticipation has been building steadily since the KIFF screening, driven by a particularly devoted following among the caprine racing community, who have adopted Ludmila — the goat, not the film — as an unofficial mascot. General release is scheduled for March 2026.
