Mileva Gara Jovanović and Nada Stanišić appear in “To Hold a Mountain” by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Eva Kraljeviċ)
By Lucy Spicer
On the sweeping Sinjajevina mountain in northern Montenegro, life is hard work. Gara and her daughter, Nada, spend the summer and autumn months tending to the land and their herds, collecting water, making cheese, and huddling together with kittens under a single blanket to stay warm at night. These pastoral traditions aren’t for the faint of heart, but they’re precious to those who reside on the mountain, and Gara and Nada’s home is full of love.
These daily routines anchor Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s To Hold a Mountain, which premiered January 26 at the Library Center Theatre in Park City as part of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. “This is the first film from Montenegro to be presented at the Sundance Film Festival,” says Glomazić to audience applause as he introduces the film.
“We’re here for the first time with a film that we’ve been working on for more than seven years,” reveals Tutorov. “This film is ultimately about love. And also I hope that it will show how love can maybe be a political tool and a tool of resistance in this shivering world that we are living in now.”
Because the documentary isn’t quite a quotidian idyll. As we get to know this beautiful place and the resilient people who keep it, we also learn that it’s threatened. The sounds of wind and bleating animals are intermittently interrupted by the whir of helicopters, surveilling the land for a NATO military training site. But the mountain community is standing their ground.
Gara is a galvanizing figure in this fight. She makes speeches on horseback, she camps out in protest, and she goes up against generals on television. “I was hoping and believing that people would hear me, because if people join together we can do everything,” says Gara in Montenegrin during the film’s post-premiere Q&A. “So I was really hoping that my voice would go out and people would hear it and help us protect [the mountain].”
Being a protector seems to be part of Gara’s DNA. In addition to protecting her mountain, her community, and her way of life, she is determined to protect Nada from the violent patriarchal traditions that governed her own past. Gara isn’t Nada’s birth mother; she’s actually her aunt. Gara’s beloved sister was killed by her husband — Nada’s father — when Nada was very young. And though he was imprisoned for his crime, Gara reveals in the film that his sentence is soon coming to an end.
The fierce love Gara has for Nada is the same one she has for her community. “Gara had also become a very big role model that really influenced the citizens,” says Tutorov. “And it’s very rare for a woman to have such a role in the region.”
“Montenegro is extremely traditional,” adds Glomazić. “Our history is full of stories about heroes, war deeds and merits, and — always — the women are pushed in shadow … only nameless mothers who gave birth and life to the heroes. But in reality, they are really the backbone and the ground of the society — every society.” The co-directors express a deep happiness that the first Montenegrin film to premiere at the Festival should be one about such a beautiful place being guarded by real heroes. And if the lengthy standing ovation that Gara and Nada receive is any indication, the audience is just as appreciative.
