Born in Malmö in 1973 Elizabeta Zemljić is a film and theatre director with a special passion for creating stories about interactions between different European cultures. While growing up in Sweden, she returned regularly to Yugoslavia, the home country of her parents. She has also lived for three years in Copenhagen. In 1996 Elizabeta Zemljić was deemed Personality of the Year by a major Malmö newspaper, in recognition of her work with a groundbreaking theatre project in the city. Most of her professional work reflects her attempts to link up identities. Picnic at the Cemetery was awarded the prize for ‘Best foreign short film’ at a 2001 New York film festival. Her documentary film Gingerbread Land has been aired on Swedish and Finnish national television. Both these films have also been screened across Serbia. Elizabeta’s latest theatre production – Teenage Club/The Truth of Growing Up – is a collaborative project between a Serbian and a Swedish theatre company. Since 2007 Elizabeta has been living on the small island of Inis Meáin, off Ireland’s west coast. In November 2008 a documentary film she directed and produced through the medium of Irish premiered on the Gaelic language television channel TG4.
Sweden