Wall of Death, and All That

In 1972 Yugoslavia became the site of Europe’s last smallpox epidemic. This gripping archival documentary, aptly described by its creators as a medical thriller, reconstructs the dramatic events of those spring months, and viewers will find it difficult not to draw comparisons with the worldwide events of the past two years.

Communist ideals have long lost their value in Yiwu, a city with 600 Christmas factories, in which Christmas as we know it is produced for the entire world. With rising wages, the workers in Christmas factories can now afford newest iPhones, but they still live in crowded dormitories. All migrants in their own country, nostalgic for some place far away, some miss their families left in hometowns, other miss their friends and lovers from the factories when they go home for holidays. Young generation is already tired of long factory hours, chemical fumes and glitter particles, and they do not care for their parents' wishes to get educated. Stuck in between Chinese tradition and the newly discovered Chinese dream, they want their own businesses, to be rich, to be independent, to be in love.

Schoolkids living on the top of the paradise island wait for the rain to stop. A former advertising executive is closing a land deal for her new villa. An entrepreneur battles nature while building a resort in the jungle. A veterinarian works cleaning snakes from the gardens of the foreigners. An influencer, disillusioned with love, recovers from losing everything overnight. A father and son prepare to leave for good, not knowing where. A dancer adopts a new identity, distancing herself from everything she’s ever known. Divers venture into uncharted waters, risking their lives for the challenge of conquest. The tensions between life’s possibilities revolve around the question of what life one should be living, with every decision leading to a different version of oneself. And while the earthly paradise might be nothing more than an ideal of imagination, humanity’s relentless pursuit for happiness persists.

Hundreds of frozen and starved people floating on boats in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea fleeing from the war... Familiar scenes that we are used to seeing in recent times. But the year is 1944, and the refugees are travelling from Europe to Africa. After Italian capitulation,and before the arrival of German army, 28 000 Dalmatian Croats left their home villages and towns to live for two years under the tents in the middle of Egyptian desert, in a kind of a communist model village that was formed to show the Allies how the new Yugoslavia will look like when the war ends. This is a story about them.

On mysterious cassettes forgotten or left behind for 17 years, a disturbing filmic material is revealed. Accompanied by the extracts of a diary written by the protagonist standing behind the camera, the images translate into a singular and transformative intimate experience. Mladen Kovačević constructs a film using sequences retracing a Serbian expedition to Mount Everest. Images from another time, shot in the almost alien, mystical landscapes reveal enigmatic characters, perilous circumstances and the suspense of confrontation to the real limits of human capabilities. An adventure film, as rigorous as it is melancholic, based on skilful editing.