THE LANDSCAPE AND THE FURY
Documentary I 138 Min.
Director: Nicole Vögele
Cinematography: Stefan Sick
Editor: Hannes Bruun
Location Sound: Jean-Pierre Gerth / Jonathan Schorr
Music: alva noto
Sound Design & Mix: Jonathan Schorr
Grading: Timo Inderfurth
Produced by: Beauvoir Films, Aline Schmid & Adrian Blaser
In coproduction with: SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen • SRG SSR
With the support of: Federal Office of Culture (FOC) • Zürcher Filmstiftung • Cinéforom & Loterie Romande • Kulturfonds Suissimage • Aargauer Kuratorium • Swisslos-Fonds Kanton Solothurn •UBS Kulturstiftung
Director: Nicole Vögele
Cinematography: Stefan Sick
Editor: Hannes Bruun
Location Sound: Jean-Pierre Gerth / Jonathan Schorr
Music: alva noto
Sound Design & Mix: Jonathan Schorr
Grading: Timo Inderfurth
Produced by: Beauvoir Films, Aline Schmid & Adrian Blaser
In coproduction with: SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen • SRG SSR
With the support of: Federal Office of Culture (FOC) • Zürcher Filmstiftung • Cinéforom & Loterie Romande • Kulturfonds Suissimage • Aargauer Kuratorium • Swisslos-Fonds Kanton Solothurn •UBS Kulturstiftung
Awards:
Grand Jury Prize Visions du Réel 2024
MIRAGE CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD - by One-Person Jury: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
Doc Alliance Alliance Award 2024
Grand Jury Prize Visions du Réel 2024
MIRAGE CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD - by One-Person Jury: Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
Doc Alliance Alliance Award 2024
SYNOPSIS
Ravnice, at the north-western tip of Bosnia. If this weren’t where the green border with Croatia and thus the EU’s external border runs through, it would be one of the world’s most uneventful regions. Only a few houses, a couple of sheds – randomly dotted across the hills. The idyll of this seemingly unspoilt landscape is deceptive. Dark dreams still slumber in its soil, many mines from the Bosnian war are yet to be cleared.
Amid all this, people trudge through the night, the rain and the snow in search of shelter and a better life. People from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Burundi, they have become pawns in our politics. At times, the wind carries their screams through the night. When they are brutally chased across the border out of the EU into the grey blackness of the woods. Discouraged and disorientated, they find themselves in the middle of nowhere that is Ravnice. The villagers know of the fate of refugees, they once shared it. They open the old school building to them and so their exhausted bodies and souls find a moment of safety, far away from official camps and NGOs.
Meanwhile, daily routines happen around them, everyday life continues. Despite flight. Despite wars. Wood has to be chopped and corn harvested. Children practise poems. The sporty roaring of motorbikes shakes up the tranquillity of afternoon coffee rituals. The imam calls to prayer. Somewhere dogs bark and over the border a large flock of birds draw irregular circles in the sky.
Swiss director Nicole Vögele (CLOSING TIME, NEBEL) spent several years investigating and reporting on this border region. She was the first journalist to film the illegal pushbacks of the Croatian police. Now she returns as a cineaste. Observing, delving deeper, not prying with direct questions, giving the seasons, the weather and the forest as much space as the people. The result is a portrait of a perhaps inconsolable, haunted landscape, as if in the throes of a nightmare. But also a portrait of human resilience and warmth. A bright flicker in the darkness.
Ravnice, at the north-western tip of Bosnia. If this weren’t where the green border with Croatia and thus the EU’s external border runs through, it would be one of the world’s most uneventful regions. Only a few houses, a couple of sheds – randomly dotted across the hills. The idyll of this seemingly unspoilt landscape is deceptive. Dark dreams still slumber in its soil, many mines from the Bosnian war are yet to be cleared.
Amid all this, people trudge through the night, the rain and the snow in search of shelter and a better life. People from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Burundi, they have become pawns in our politics. At times, the wind carries their screams through the night. When they are brutally chased across the border out of the EU into the grey blackness of the woods. Discouraged and disorientated, they find themselves in the middle of nowhere that is Ravnice. The villagers know of the fate of refugees, they once shared it. They open the old school building to them and so their exhausted bodies and souls find a moment of safety, far away from official camps and NGOs.
Meanwhile, daily routines happen around them, everyday life continues. Despite flight. Despite wars. Wood has to be chopped and corn harvested. Children practise poems. The sporty roaring of motorbikes shakes up the tranquillity of afternoon coffee rituals. The imam calls to prayer. Somewhere dogs bark and over the border a large flock of birds draw irregular circles in the sky.
Swiss director Nicole Vögele (CLOSING TIME, NEBEL) spent several years investigating and reporting on this border region. She was the first journalist to film the illegal pushbacks of the Croatian police. Now she returns as a cineaste. Observing, delving deeper, not prying with direct questions, giving the seasons, the weather and the forest as much space as the people. The result is a portrait of a perhaps inconsolable, haunted landscape, as if in the throes of a nightmare. But also a portrait of human resilience and warmth. A bright flicker in the darkness.
Festivals:
- Amsterdam, 37th IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
- Leipzig, 67. DOK Leipzig - Internationales Festival für Dokumentar- und Animationsfilm
- Jihlava, 28th Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival
- Lisbon, 22° doclisboa Festival internacional de cinema
- Ghent, 51st Film Fest Gent
- Tirana, 22nd Tirana International Film Festival
- Locarno, 77° Locarno Film Festival
- Prizren, 23rd Dokufest International Documentary and Short Film Festival Prizren
- Shanghai, 26th Shanghai International Film Festival
- Nyon, 55. Visions du Réel - Festival international de cinéma Nyon
