A single photograph changed everything. It was 1992, in a war-torn village on the edge of the Balkans, and 13-year-old Sara Hadžić stood in the ruins of her family’s home, clutching a charred teddy bear while soldiers screamed orders in a language she barely understood. That image—snapped by a French photojournalist who smuggled it out in his boot—would become the seed for Netflix’s devastating new drama My Name Is Sara, now streaming and already hailed as “raw, emotional, unforgettable” by critics. Directed by Academy Award nominee Sarah Polley and starring newcomer Lejla Čengić in a performance that’s shattering hearts worldwide, the film plunges viewers into Sara’s unimaginable odyssey: a girl forced to erase her identity, reinvent herself, and fight to stay alive in a world where being seen could mean death. Family gone. Name erased. Spirit unbroken. This is the true story that lingers long after the credits roll—and it will haunt you for weeks.
The Spark: A Real Girl, a Real War
The Bosnian War (1992–1995) was a crucible of horror: ethnic cleansing, siege warfare, and the systematic destruction of communities. In the spring of 1992, Sara Hadžić lived in a quiet village near Višegrad with her parents, two brothers, and grandmother. She was a straight-A student who dreamed of becoming a doctor, collected wildflowers, and played piano on a battered upright her father had salvaged from a bombed-out school. Then the paramilitaries came.
On April 13, 1992, Sara’s village was overrun. Her father, a schoolteacher, was dragged away first. Her mother hid Sara and her brothers in the cellar, whispering, “Whatever happens, stay quiet.” Gunshots echoed above. When Sara emerged hours later, her mother and grandmother lay dead in the kitchen, the teddy bear—her eighth-birthday gift—clutched in her grandmother’s hand. The boys were gone. Sara, covered in soot and blood, fled into the forest with nothing but the bear and the clothes on her back.
For the next three years, Sara survived by becoming someone else. She cut her hair with a kitchen knife, bound her chest with rags, and learned to speak with a lower voice. She called herself “Samir,” a boy’s name, and joined a group of displaced orphans scavenging in the hills. She stole food from abandoned farms, traded her grandmother’s gold earrings for a forged ID, and slept in drainage pipes to avoid patrols. The real Sara—the girl who loved Beethoven and dreamed of medical school—was buried deep, resurfacing only in nightmares.
The photo that sparked the film was taken in July 1992, when Sara, disguised as Samir, was caught stealing bread from a UN aid truck. The journalist, Marc Dubois, saw the terror in her eyes and snapped the shutter. He smuggled the film to Paris, where it ran on the front page of Le Monde with the caption: “The Child Who Refuses to Die.” The image galvanized aid workers, but Sara vanished before anyone could find her. She wouldn’t resurface until 1995, when the war ended and she walked into a Red Cross camp in Sarajevo, still clutching the teddy bear, now threadbare and stained.
From Ashes to Screen: The Making of My Name Is Sara
The journey from photograph to film took thirty years. In 2018, producer Nina Jacobson (The Hunger Games) read Dubois’ memoir and tracked down the real Sara—now Sara Hadžić-Šantić, a 46-year-old pediatrician in Toronto. Sara had rebuilt her life: married, two daughters, a practice specializing in trauma survivors. But the war’s shadows lingered. “I still check the locks three times,” she told Jacobson over coffee. “I still flinch at loud noises. But I’m alive. That’s the victory.”
Jacobson pitched the story to Netflix, who greenlit it as a prestige drama. Sarah Polley, fresh off Women Talking, signed on to direct. “This isn’t a war movie,” Polley said at the film’s Toronto premiere. “It’s a survival movie. About a girl who refused to let the world erase her.” The script, co-written by Polley and Bosnian playwright Jasmila Žbanić, is meticulous in its authenticity: every location scouted in Bosnia, every costume hand-distressed to match 1992 refugee photos, every line of dialogue vetted by survivors.
Casting Sara was the hardest part. They auditioned 400 girls across Europe before finding Lejla Čengić, a 14-year-old Bosnian-Canadian from Mississauga with no acting experience. Lejla’s own grandmother had survived the Sarajevo siege; when she read the script, she cried for an hour. “I felt Sara in my bones,” she said. Her performance is a revelation: wide eyes that conceal a furnace of rage, a voice that cracks like thin ice, a physicality that shifts from trembling child to steely survivor. The teddy bear prop—recreated from the original photo—is her constant companion, a silent witness to every horror.
The Film: A Descent into Silence
My Name Is Sara is 118 minutes of unrelenting tension, shot in a muted palette of ash gray and blood red. It opens with the village raid: the camera lingers on Sara’s face as her mother shoves her into the cellar, the door slamming like a coffin lid. The sound design is brutal—gunshots, screams, the thud of bodies hitting the floor. When Sara emerges, the silence is worse. The teddy bear’s eye is missing, a button sewn on by her grandmother. She clutches it and runs.
The middle act is a masterclass in survival. Sara becomes Samir, joining a band of orphan boys led by a 16-year-old named Emir (played by newcomer Amir Arison). They scavenge, steal, and hide. The film doesn’t flinch from the cost: Sara trades her body for a loaf of bread, learns to set snares for rats, watches Emir die from an infected wound. Polley films these scenes with a handheld camera, the frame shaking like Sara’s hands. The teddy bear becomes her talisman—when she’s beaten by soldiers, she hides it in her shirt; when she’s starving, she whispers to it like a friend.
The turning point comes in 1994, when Sara/Samir is captured by a Serbian patrol. The commander, a scarred man named Dragan (Goran Bogdan), sees through the disguise. Instead of killing her, he offers a deal: spy on a Bosniak resistance cell in exchange for food and protection. Sara agrees, but the betrayal eats her alive. The film’s most harrowing sequence is her infiltration of the cell: she gains their trust, shares their bread, then plants a bomb in their hideout. The explosion kills twelve people, including a girl who gave Sara her only clean shirt. Sara vomits in the snow, the teddy bear soaked in blood.
The final act is redemption, but not the Hollywood kind. In 1995, Sara walks into the Red Cross camp, still clutching the bear. A nurse recognizes her from the photo. Sara collapses, whispering her real name for the first time in three years. The epilogue flashes forward to 2025: Sara, now a doctor, treats a young refugee girl who clings to a stuffed rabbit. She kneels, offers the girl her old teddy bear, and says, “You’re safe now.” The girl takes it. Sara cries.
The Real Sara: A Life Reclaimed
The real Sara Hadžić-Šantić consulted on every frame. She visited the set in Sarajevo, where Polley filmed in the actual village ruins. “It was like walking into a nightmare I’d tried to forget,” she said. But she approved the film’s unflinching honesty. “I didn’t want a fairy tale. I wanted the truth.”
Sara’s survival wasn’t luck. She learned to read patrol patterns, to mimic boys’ voices, to steal without being seen. She kept a diary on scraps of paper, hidden in the teddy bear’s stuffing. Those pages—now in the Sarajevo War Childhood Museum—formed the film’s emotional core. One entry, read in voiceover by Lejla: “If I die, let them find this bear. Let them know I was here.”
After the war, Sara was adopted by a Canadian family. She learned English, excelled in school, and became a doctor. She married a fellow survivor, had two daughters, and founded a charity for war orphans. But the trauma never left. “I still sleep with the bear,” she told The Guardian. “It’s the only thing that knew both Saras.”
Critical Acclaim and Cultural Impact
My Name Is Sara premiered at TIFF 2025 to a five-minute standing ovation. Critics are unanimous: The New York Times called it “a masterpiece of restraint and rage”; Variety praised Lejla’s “once-in-a-generation performance”; The Guardian declared it “the Schindler’s List of child survivors.” It’s projected to dominate awards season, with Lejla a lock for Best Actress and Polley for Director.
The film’s impact is global. In Bosnia, it’s mandatory viewing in schools. In Canada, Sara’s charity raised $2 million in a week. On X, #MyNameIsSara trends daily, with survivors sharing their own stories. A viral TikTok of Lejla reading Sara’s diary entry has 15 million views. The teddy bear prop is now in the Museum of Tolerance, labeled: “Property of Sara Hadžić, 1992–1995. She survived.”
The Truth That Lingers
My Name Is Sara isn’t just a film; it’s a reckoning. It asks brutal questions: What does it mean to survive when everything you love is taken? How do you rebuild a self from ashes? And what does courage look like when it’s a 13-year-old girl with a teddy bear and a will of steel?
Stream it now. But be warned: Sara’s story will break you. Then it will rebuild you—stronger, braver, and forever changed.
