October, 24th 2015, a beautiful autumn day, a beautiful landscape. Escorted by soldiers and police officers a line of refugees and migrants makes their way from the Schengen border between Croatia and Slovenia towards the reception centre in Brežice. Yet, at the end, the landscape does not seem quite as beautiful as it was in the beginning. In 2002 I made a feature film about two traffickers smuggling people into EU. Thirteen years later I decided to make a short film about lines of refugees crossing those exact same border accompanied by the police and soldiers carrying automatic rifles. When dealing with such a subject the author must ask themselves about the ethics of ‘directing’. I decided on a ‘no directing’ approach – I used a static, ‘Lumiere-style’ camera, without direction or editing. Like an eerie remake of “The Arrival of a Train”. Damjan Kozole
| Producer: |
Danijel Hočevar |
| Director: |
Damjan Kozole |
| Script: |
Damjan Kozole |
| Camera: |
Matjaž Mrak
|
| Editing: |
Jurij Moškon
|
| Director of Photography: |
Matjaž Mrak |
| Music: |
Julij Zornik |
Born in 1964, Brežice, Slovenia (then Yugoslavia). At the age of 22 made his debut with a low-budget film The Fatal Telephone, one of the first independent films in former Yugoslavia. His feature film Spare Parts (2003) won a nomination for the Golden Bear at Berlin International Film Festival (IFF) in 2003. The film won several international awards and was among candidates, selected by European Film Academy, for the best European film of that year. British film critic Peter Bradshaw wrote for the Guardian that Spare Parts was “one of the most powerful and provocative films of the year”. It has been released theatrically in around 15 states, incl. UK and USA. In 2004, Kozole participated in the international omnibus Visions of Europe (2004) together with 24 other European directors (among others with Fatih Akin, Sharunas Bartas, Peter Greenaway, Aki Kaurismaeki and Bela Tarr). In 2005, a retrospective of his feature films was hosted by American Film Institute. Films were shown in Washington (AFI Silver Springs), Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Vancouver and in Ottawa. His feature film Labour Equals Freedom (2005) premiered at Locarno IFF and was awarded the Golden Palm and Best director award at Valencia IFF in 2006. His eighth feature film Forever (2008) premiered at Rotterdam IFF 2008, while his last feature film, international co-production Slovenian Girl will be completed in April 2009. Kozole is one of the most prominent Slovenian film directors. He’s a voting member of European Film Academy.
