In Bosnian Knight, a new documentary by Tarik Hodžić, we meet a large man with long hair and a luscious beard driving a four-wheeler, fitting right into the archetype of a US trucker. But as much as Sead Delić – raised by his grandparents in rural Bosnia and having survived the genocide in Srebrenica after also serving in the Yugoslav People’s Army – tried to find the American Dream, we’re told, he was drawn back to explore the history of his homeland: Bosnia and Herzegovina. He becomes our informal guide on a cinematic journey through a history of the country, complete with its many sociocultural entanglements. Bosnian Knight recently had its world premiere at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, in the Documentary Competition.

This film opens from a unique vantage point with a short introduction about the devastation of the many indigenous peoples of the Americas. Hodžić uses this to draw parallels with the repetitive annexation of Bosnia throughout history, from before the medieval Kingdom of Bosnia, through Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule and beyond. The film’s name comes from Delić’s way of finding strength in cosplaying the titular role from medieval times, which he captures through photography.

Using sweeping folk-style melodies (music by Larisa Buro) to set off sequences of beautiful landscapes and a glossy cinematographic style (lensing by Admir Švrakić), Bosnian Knight ultimately feels like part-educational documentary, part-calling card to visit Bosnia. Delić’s trek of discovery takes him to present-day Turkey, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia to learn about their ties to the Bosnian people. Here, the viewer is destined to learn right along with our protagonist, even if many of the interactions with staff members at archives and other historical sites feel somewhat staged.

Bosnian Knight often drifts too far into territory reminiscent of the visual artifice of television advertisements, and the natural majesty of the scenery and heartfelt stories is overwritten by the style of the film. Hodžić also brings in a set of unusual characters, including a Microsoft employee and an ambassador, for talking-head interviews that feel mildly out of place in a tale that starts off as something remarkably personal. Nonetheless, the filmmaker does provide a small meta-commentary about Delić’s desire to be patriotic, rather than nationalist – a line that he, too, treads carefully within the work, no matter how difficult the task. Delić is a fascinating character, and over the film’s 100-minute running time, we are left wishing we had spent more time with him and his story, and not just that of his homeland, however important to the narrative.

Bosnian Knight is a production between Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Prime Time and Croatia’s Concept Media.