The Landscape and the Fury

A slow-paced film that maintains distance, exploring tensions along the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. The border marks the end of European Union territory, making the area a manifestation of policies that openly violate human rights. An unobtrusive camera captures everyday life: here, the uncertain fate of refugees merges with the local community, its past, and the landscape. Gradually revealing the historical wounds of the region, the landscape itself becomes a significant character in the film. War mines still lie buried in the soil from the 1990s: not only deminers and local residents walk among them, but also people seeking asylum in the EU.

This film is quite demanding in terms of its length, slow pace, and distant gaze, but patient viewers are rewarded with a conceptual insight. It does not simply present all the historical facts, but rather discovers a complex connection between the present, the past, and the landscape—history’s tendency to repeat itself, only this time in a different layer of the earth. Although the film’s ambition is aesthetic (conceptual), it leaves room for a tender and nurturing relationship with the Other. This is particularly important in the Lithuanian context when attempting to reflect the policies implemented at the Lithuanian border. – Festival coordinator and program curator Justina Jaruševičiūtė

Nicole Vögele

Nicole Vögele is a filmmaker and journalist based in Zurich and Berlin Since 2021, she holds a professorship at the Dresden University of Fine Arts. Her heart always belonged to poetic storytelling and investigative truth seeking. Films Frau Loosli (2013), Into the Innards (2013), and Nebel (2014) premiered at international film festivals. Her documentary feature Closing Time (2018) received a prize at the 2018 Locarno Film Festival.