Little House

by Nika Jurman

Hiška, 2025, fiction, 1,33:1 (4:3), 25, c, 15 min
Finished
SI
Manicurist Tatjana (35) lives above her parents' home, just like everyone else in the village. But when a friend who has just built her dream house drops by for a manicure, Tatjana decides it’s time to create a home and a life of her own.
screenwriter
Nika Jurman
script consultants
Sonja Tarokić, Pavel Marek
director
Nika Jurman
producer
Katja Lenarčič
director of photography
Teja Miholič
film editor
Špela Murenc Škulj
production designer
Dan Pikalo
costume designer
Lucija Rosc
key make-up artist
Mojca Gorogranc Petrushevska
sound designer
Julij Zornik
featuring
Lea Cverle, Sara Gorše, Niko Zagode, Vesna Poznič, Milivoj Roš, Marjeta Šrot
production
Vertigo
in collaboration with
Film Studio Viba Film
co-funding
Slovenian Film Centre

Vertigo
Katja Lenarčič
katja@vertigo.si

Nika Jurman

Nika Jurman (1991) holds a degree in philosophy and works as a screenwriter. Her animated short Borbike (2022) received the Vesna Award for Best Animated Film at the Festival of Slovenian Film and the Grand Prix at the Festival of Independent Film. Together with filmmaker Ester Ivakič, she co-wrote the screenplay for a feature film titled Ida, Who Sang So Badly That Even the Dead Rose from Their Graves and Sang Along (2025) based on Suzana Tratnik’s short story collection. She is currently writing a script for an animated series and is finally studying at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT).

“The film's universe is inspired by the place where I grew up; a village with a strong dialect and even stronger rules about what is normal and what is not. What inspired me to make this film were my visits to my parents’ house. Even though I had moved out, my room remained the same: posters on the walls, collections of broken pens, a photo of me and my godmother on my Confirmation day, and a computer that no longer worked. I imagined what my life might have been like if I had not moved out, if I had just stayed and led my grown-up life in a room that looks like a museum of my childhood. Which could easily have been the case if I had not been lucky enough to leave. As a generation, we were promised the world, yet many cannot afford a place of their own. And so they must submit to the rules of the property owners – often their loving parents, who cannot draw the line between a child living in their childhood room and an adult trying to build a life in the same space. This hierarchy does not shape only the life of the young adult; it burdens the parents too. They could live the life that comes after parenting and explore their everyday hobbies, such as having a mariachi band. I wanted to make a film about the struggle of listening to one’s own quiet voice and reclaiming the right to define what a good life is when the world is very loud and sure about what it should look like.”