13/08/2025 - The Yugoslavia-born and Berlin-based director breaks down his third feature, which navigates between genres, identities, and both urban and natural spaces

(© Locarno Film Festival/Ti-Press)

We sat down with Dane Komljen, whose long-gestated, enigmatic work Desire Lines [+see also:
film review
interview: Dane Komljen
film profile] has just premiered in the Competition of the Locarno Film Festival. Komljen shares his thoughts around the idea which is central to the film, putting what feels to him like a non-verbal intuition into words.

Cineuropa: Both Desire Lines and your first film, All the Cities of the North [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dane Komljen
film profile], share your distinctive style, but the role of nature shifts from enveloping lonely characters to absorbing them. Do you agree with this interpretation and, if so, could you elaborate on this?
Dane Komljen: It’s not really a matter of agreeing or not. What you’ve described is simply your way of articulating what you saw, and that’s fine. Films are proposals, invitations for the viewer to do something with images and sounds. When I hear your interpretation, I think, “Okay, that’s how it came across to you,” but I don’t necessarily work in a consciously thematic way.

Nature is important to me. As a queer man, I grew up hearing that my existence was somehow “unnatural.” Nature itself was often weaponised against queer experience. So perhaps, through my films, I’m trying to find or invent another kind of nature; one that isn’t hostile, one that feels different from the one suggested to me.

You link nature and the refusal of prescribed characteristics to your queer experience, but the queer element in the film is very subtle. Why did you opt against an explicit approach?
For me, queerness isn’t only about representing certain experiences within existing narrative frames. It’s also about creating different cinematic experiences altogether, new ways for images and sounds to work together. That’s more crucial. It invites the audience to form different associations, to take different journeys.

In Desire Lines, Branko feels trapped in his apartment or city. When he’s surrounded by nature, he’s tense at first but then he slowly relaxes, becoming what he can’t become in man-made spaces. Was this the idea behind it?
For me, the city in the film is darker. It’s the “night” part of the story, a place of rigid, rectangular shapes – buildings, doors, hallways – representing strict boundaries. But I don’t think of it as real city versus real nature; both are abstract spaces. The film is about dissolving, about moving from a rigid state into something more porous. Branko constantly pushes against boundaries, wanting to keep flowing, to avoid becoming rigid.

Who is Branko, for you, and why does he need to dissolve?
I think Branko’s character embodies a part of the human experience that resists being boxed in, a disobedient part. His journey is about what to do with that disobedience, and where it might take him. When I was writing his character, I imagined someone at the very end of his twenties – a threshold moment when society expects you to “finish growing up” and settle on a single life path. Branko is someone who refuses to stop changing, even at that particular moment in time.

In your director’s notes, you mention the connection between movement and an image of freedom. Does that relate to this refusal to stop changing?
The title refers to “desire lines,” an urbanistic term describing the unofficial paths people (or even animals) take rather than following prescribed paths. They’re often longer than the official routes, but it’s not just about shortcuts. It’s about refusing the path you’ve been told to take. That was important for me: Branko’s journey is a walk, a process of change through movement. The film changes with him.

That’s true. Early in the film, Branko seems to follow his brother, but eventually finds his own way, and the film also develops in a different direction.
Is there really a brother? His existence is called into question during a phone call. The same actor plays both Branko and the brother. I think of the brother more as a catalyst, perhaps even an alter ego. But it’s actually a friend’s voice on the phone that sets Branko off on his journey.

Desire Lines also has a strong performative aspect, with respect to the body performance in the second half of the film. Why did you introduce that particular aspect?
It wasn’t entirely intentional. I was playing with thriller and horror moods, but I also wanted to create a strange world, a house with its very own creatures. The performative quality emerged naturally out of that.

You co-wrote the script with experienced scriptwriter Tanja Šljivar. How did that collaboration work?
I started writing in 2016. Two years later, we began applying for funding, which was a long and difficult process. At a certain point, I felt detached from the script and needed to reconnect with it. Tanja joined halfway through, and her presence transformed the project: she brought fresh energy and helped me rediscover the film.