Donau, Dunaj, Duna, Dunav, Dunarea

Colour, 35 mm
Austria, 2003, 89 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

“The difference between water and a river is that a river has a memory, a past and a history… A ship sailing on it can become a time machine.” In this unusual “river movie” the ship in question is an old excursion boat, called after variants of the name of the longest river in Europe. On a voyage of almost 2,000 kilometres from Vienna to the mouth of the Danube at the Black Sea, a tale unfolds of four crew members, and the three passengers who find themselves on board for different reasons. The old German captain, Franz, is honouring the last wishes of his long-time love, Mara, who once competed in the Olympics for Romania, and who wanted to be buried at the Iron Gate. Another woman, Mathilda, fleeing from dependence on drugs, is on the boat transporting the coffin. In Bratislava, a Romanian Mircea is fished out of the water by the crew while trying to swim to Austria. The first to disembark is the Hungarian cook Tanja, and then the Serbian engineer Nicola. Giorgi remains, Franz’s Ukrainian friend. Just as the water flows alongside the boat, so the relationships between the characters flow and change… Director Goran Rebić has made an original film responding not only to the myth of the great river, but especially to the lives of simple people marked by events large and small.

About the director

Goran Rebić (b. 1968, Vršac, Yugoslavia) studied at the Film Academy in Vienna (1987-91), and he still lives and works in the city. He began as a documentarist with the films I Came (Gekommen bin ich, 1987), Sissi, Black Ship (Sissi, schwarzes Schiff, 1989), Homeland (Domovina, 1990) and At the Edge of the World (Am Rande der Welt, 1992). He made his debut in features with the family drama Jugofilm (1996; Special Prize from the Ecumenical Jury at the 1997 Karlovy Vary IFF), in which he dealt with resonances of the Balkan War. After that he made the full-length documentary The Punishment (Kazna, 2000) using the testimony of people from bombed Belgrade. His next feature, Donau Dunaj Duna Dunav Dunarea, won the Audience Awards at Mannheim-Heidelberg in 2003.