Ena Sendijarević Assembles Cast for Witch-Hunt Drama 'The Possessed'
Bosnian-Dutch writer-director Ena Sendijarević has completed casting on her third feature, The Possessed, with Suzy Bemba, Khalil Gharbia and Ji-Min Park joining previously announced lead Ariane Labed, according to Variety.
The film is set in 17th-century Europe, where two women fleeing witch hunts build a refuge at the edge of the world — until a man becomes their unwilling captive and ignites a dangerous love triangle. Variety revealed the role names: Labed plays The Midwife, Bemba plays The Baroness, Gharbia plays The Shepherd, and Ji-Min Park plays The Director.
Sendijarević reworked the script and will shoot in French, making this her first French-language feature. The production heads to Spain this autumn, filming across the Barcelona area, the Teruel region and the Bardenas Reales — a stretch of semi-desert badlands in the country's northeast that has served as a backdrop for everything from spaghetti westerns to Game of Thrones. Studio Ruba, a Dutch production company, is producing, with funding from The Netherlands Film Fund, CoBo, ICEC, Uniqa, Creative Europe Media and VPRO, per the company's project page. The project is also among the first selected for NL Wave 26, a Netherlands-based film initiative, Screen Daily reported in July.
The cast brings a striking depth of festival pedigree. Bemba broke through as Flora in the series L'Opéra and appeared in Catherine Corsini's The Return, which screened in competition at Cannes. Her international credits include Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things and Anthony Chen's Drift opposite Cynthia Erivo. She was named a César Revelation, selected for Unifrance's 10 Talents to Watch, and chosen as France's European Shooting Star at the 2024 Berlinale. She has also been cast in the action thriller Cliffhanger alongside Pierce Brosnan and Lily James.
Gharbia's breakout lead came in Zeno Graton's The Lost Boys, which premiered at the Berlinale. His television work spans the BBC One drama Two Weeks in August, the BBC's Agatha Christie adaptation Towards Zero opposite Matthew Rhys and Anjelica Huston, and the Starz/Sky series Mary & George with Julianne Moore. He is an alumnus of the César Academy's Revelations selection.
Park, born in Seoul and based in Paris, starred in Davy Chou's Return to Seoul, which played at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. That performance earned Park a 2024 César Revelations nod, a Lumière Award nomination, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's New Generation Award, and a Best New Performer nomination at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Further credits include the Apple TV series La Maison.
Sendijarević's path to this film runs through the support structures that feed European art-house cinema. She was among five female filmmakers from Southeast Europe backed by the Sarajevo and Slano initiatives, Screen Daily reported in June 2025. Her third feature now moves from page to camera with a cast that spans French, Belgian, South Korean and British screen traditions, all converging on a Spanish shoot for a story about women on the run.
