Sarajevo Songs of Woe
Trailer [bs st en]
by Fred Kelemen
Sarajevo. A young man stands in the same spot where Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand 100 years ago. He is shooting the site's beauty with a video camera. Torn up by his endangered love for his seriously mobility impaired girlfriend and his desire for vitality and independence, he wants to find a dignified way of saving love from dying. The director, who is also a cinematographer for Bela Tarr (cinematography prize winner for "The Turin Horse", among others), presents a film triptych. It comprises two tales: "Blue Ballad for Lovers" and "Blue Rondo for Survivors", and a connecting middle part, "Blue Psalm for Wolves". All the parts flow into each other and build one universal mosaic of life in Sarajevo. In Kelemen's typical long, uncut shots the camera follows different protagonists and shows their interweaving dance of hope and despair, love and death.