The film documents her mother Maja Bilić’s emotional reunion with the piano she’d cherished since childhood. The piano had sat undisturbed in her old flat in Sarajevo since 1992, when she and her daughters fled the former Yugoslavia for Britain to escape the Bosnian War. Returning to the city, Maja reminisces about the burgeoning career as a musician she was forced to abandon, and ruminates on feelings of grief, guilt and loss.

But Maja’s story is just the starting point. Under her daughter Aleksandra’s direction, “The Score” expands into a processing of the past for both mother and daughter, and an ode to Bosnian War refugees in Britain.

The Score is a film by Aleksandra Bilic commissioned by WePresent, the arts platform of WeTransfer, and was co-distributed by WePresent in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs.

WePresent’s goal is to support artists from around the world through commissions to tell unexpected stories about creativity. These are shared on WeTransfer.com to its audience of 80 million monthly active users in 190 countries, with additional context from the WePresent curatorial and editorial teams on the WePresent site.

In a little house in Reading, Maja Bilic agrees it is time to compose a piece of music that could have defined her career - had it not been for the Bosnian war. To finish the piece she must return home, where her old piano still stands, untouched since 1992, to finally perform her piece of music. THE SCORE is an intervention, a collaboration and an immersion between the director and her mother.

In 1992, Maja Bilić and her children fled their home in Sarajevo on what would turn out to be the last flight to Britain from the former Yugoslavia, escaping the violence of the Bosnian War. Among the possessions she left behind was the prized piano she’d cherished since childhood. 30 years later, her daughter Aleksandra—now a filmmaker, writer and producer—has revisited her mother’s complex relationship with both her instrument and her lost home.