Midwinter Night´s Dream

Colour, 35 mm
Serbia and Montenegro, 2004, 95 min
Section: Horizons
Oficiální stránky: www.bavaria-film-international.de

Synopsis

Serbia, winter 2004. Lazar is returning home after ten years in prison. In the house where he once lived with his mother, he finds new inhabitants – war refugees from Bosnia. Jasna was abandoned by her husband since he couldn’t come to terms with their child’s illness, and now, in this foreign environment, she lives with her 12-year-old daughter Jovana, who suffers from autism. Lazar initially insists that they leave, but when he finds out that there is no more room at the local dormitory, he lets them stay. The two adults – Lazar and Jasna –  are united in their endeavours to overcome their tragic past and to try to start again. Little Jovana indirectly makes this task easier for them, living in a world of determined illness, as they patiently and considerately seek a way out for her. Their common desire for love and domestic happiness gives them both the strength to forget, but seemingly it isn’t possible to escape from one’s own past.... Goran Paskaljević presents a loose continuation of his dramatic film mosaic set during a single day in Belgrade, The Powder Keg (Bure baruta), in which Lazar’s bloody conflict with his best friend is the dominant motif. The director possibly felt an urgent need to finish telling his hero’s life story and thereby complete his own distinctive analysis of the Balkan character – “homo balcanicus”, as a film critic labelled it at the time.

About the director

Goran Paskalević (b. 1947, Belgrade) studied direction at Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU) in 1967-71. He began by primarily making documentaries and short films. In 1976 he debuted with the feature Beach Guard in Winter (Čuvar plaže u zimskom periodu) and its screening introduced the concept of the “Czech school of Yugoslav film”. Other films: The Dog Who Loved Trains (Pas koji je voleo vozove, 1978), Special Treatment (Poseban tretman, 1980), Twilight Time (Suton, 1982), The Elusive Summer of ‘68 (Varljivo leto ‘68, 1984), Tango Argentino (1992). Paskaljević, who lives both in Belgrade and Paris, has won many important festival awards. Two of his latest films were screened at the Karlovy Vary IFF in the Horizons section: The Powder Keg (Bure baruta, 1998), sharply criticised by the Milošević regime, and How Harry Became a Tree (2001).