The journey of American-Bosnian writer Aleksandar Hemon, described in his autobiographical essays collected in The Book of My Lives, may have a happy ending, but it does not say much about him. In his new American life, Hemon too had to face the loss of his world, his own invisibility in a vast, foreign city, and the resulting devaluation and dehumanization of all that was his. In the painful process of rebuilding himself, he often felt humiliated, frightened, lonely, angry and, above all, misunderstood. In the end, he succeeded. In his new life, Aleksandar Hemon is an acclaimed American writer, and Chicago is his home. Yet his story remains easily recognizable to many whose experiences of emigration do not have a happy ending. Ivana Đilas is among those who can see themselves in Hemon’s story, which is why The Book of My Lives is also a deeply personal confession by the director, who, with the help of the writer’s stories of emigration, tells her own story.