When Miroslav Terzić was writing his new film in 2023, titled “3 Weeks Later,” a mass shooting occurred in a Serbian school, the country where the director was born.

“It was terrible when you realize that what you are writing about is happening somewhere right now; it’s not a movie, it’s real life,” Terzić says. Variety of his third feature film, co-produced by Serbia, Bulgaria, Italy, Croatia and Luxembourg.

Inspired by true events and dedicated to Aleksa and Mahir, two young people who committed suicide a year apart, “3 Weeks After” will premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival on July 7 as an official selection of the Crystal Globe Competition. Written by Terzić, Vladimir Arsenijević and Bojan Vuletić, the film follows a school trip to the Bulgarian mountains three weeks after a classmate, Andrij, commits suicide, leaving his best friend, Tsosta (Jovan Ginić), grieving and vulnerable at the hands of his apathetic classmates and helpless teachers.

“The teachers start behaving normally and then we realize that the film is not about bullying, but about the violence that became the everyday language of young people,” says Terzić. “Three weeks later is not enough time to process all this stuff, and especially for young children. We discussed [with the actors] how when tragedy strikes, life must move on. But many times nothing really changes.”

To cast the group of 24 children, Terzić met with more than 500 different actors and ended up casting mostly non-professionals. Instead of asking them to read lines, Terzić simply asked them about their experience at school.

It was then that Terzić realized how close the story was to many of them: “There were two young people who told me that they were villains in that peer-to-peer violence. They are very mature in thinking about it, realizing what they did when they were young. And now, when they see violence, they interfere.”

When acts of on-screen violence occur in “3 Weeks After,” such as when Tsosta is kicked to the point of bleeding on the side of the road, cinematographer Damjan Radovanović remains at a distance, a choice informed by Terzić’s focus on people in society who remain “neutral” and choose “not to interfere” in times of crisis.

“It can be compared to the way we see violence today: from the side, from above, on our phone. There is a kind of space between what protects us and the violence itself. The violence becomes spectacle, something fun to watch. And then we realized that this is our language of the film,” says Terzić. “When I realized I had kids who could work together, we started shooting long takes and started improvising.”

In Bulgaria, where the film takes place, Terzić says conversations about suicide often happen too late. And with the world premiere of “3 Weeks After” in the Czech Republic, you can see firsthand how different audiences resonate with adult themes.

“We are already in a kind of fire, but we don’t realize it. We don’t realize the fire. We somehow remain immune because everyday language is the language of violence,” says Terzić. “If someone walked out of the theater and thought about the movie, that would be a very good starting point. Maybe someone would take some kind of action.”

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.