The Wire
Can you imagine your house being in one country and your garden in another? Borders and ridiculous political decisions are questioned in this thought-provoking documentary by one of the leading female documentary makers in Croatia – Tiha Gudac, whose previous film “Goli” won Heart of Sarajevo, and this one FIPRESCI film critics award at ZagrebDox.
Synopsis
Harsh living conditions have always brought people together in the Kupa-region on the Croatian-Slovenian border, but today the stream of life is cut in two by a razor wire to keep refugees from entering Slovenia along the Schengen border. The new “wall protecting Europe” might seem to be a good solution on paper for decision makers, but the people living there are feeling the true nature of separation lines. The region has become an arena of different faces of human nature brought forward by a time of crisis, in which the local population needs to find a way to deal with unexpected reality. The Wire is part of the Borderline collection: a series of border films by six European emerging documentary filmmakers.
ZICA
Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Norway, Lithuania | 2021 | 75 min
DIRECTOR: Tiha K. Gudac
PRODUCTION: Frederik Nikolai, Eric Goossens – Off World; Kinoteka, Urgh!, Relation 04 Media, Inscript
SCREENPLAY: Tiha K. Gudac, Igor Basin, Frederik Nicolai
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Darko Heric, Thomas Szacka-Marie
EDITING: Thijs Van Nuffel
SCREENING: Saturday 26 November / 11:00h / Zaal 4 & Sunday 27 November / 15:15h / Zaal 3
The screening will be followed by Q&A with producer Frederik Nikolai. Dutch Premiere
Festivals & Awards (selection)
ZagrebDox, 2021 – FIPRESCI Prize | DOK.fest Munich, 2021 – World Premiere | Crossing Europe FF, Linz 2021 – Opening Film | Rab FF, 2021 – Special Mention | Free Zone FF, Belgrade 2021 – Human Rights Award | One World, International Human Rights Documentary FF, Brussels 2022 – Special Mention
Director’s statement
Making this film about the Kupa river canyon has taken me to a border region where I have witnessed a gradual transformation of a community, over a period of four years. The region has been cut in half by a razor wire – which nobody wanted yet everyone has to live with. Here free Europe is making its conscious clear by bureaucratically dealing with a challenge too big to be solved by simple decisions on offer. A community that has only recently lived together is now becoming two communities defined as “us and them”. I see this film story as a significant one, as the changes happening in Europe on a big scale are happening here, on a small and very indicative level. As a filmmaker I feel these kind of situations are precisely the ones we should be drawn to, as we are yet to learn all the layers and significance of change happening right in front of us. I feel as if it was both an obligation and a privilege to have a crew and an opportunity to document this moment in time.
Director’s bio
Tiha Gudac is a filmmaker based in Croatia, where she’s working as a director, scriptwriter and a producer. She has an MA as a Master of Film Arts and an MA in Business Marketing. As a director, scriptwriter and researcher she is working primarily on documentary projects. As a producer she has independently produced and worked on: fiction, documentary, and animated films and commercial and TV formats, some of which were awarded, or box office success. She debuted as a director with her film “Naked Island” (2014), which has received numerous international festival awards, and has had international theatrical, TV and educational distribution. In the recent years she has directed, written and co-produced three TV documentary series programs for Croatian national TV Broadcaster HRT. As a guest lecturer she teaches subjects of documentary film projects development and commercial TV production. She is a member of Director’s Guild of Croatia, Croatian Filmmaker Association and Croatian Independent Artists Association.