[ Film News ]

A new update on the website Making of Europa is available with
behind-the-scenes footage as well as interviews. Bal-Can-Can is the new film
from Macedonian writer/director Darko Mitrevski (Zbogum na dvadesetiot vek/Good bye 20th century) and tells the story of two contraband smugglers.
 

Blood-brothers Serafim and Vitomir are the protagonists of this story. Longtime friends, the two share risks and very little profit, which they obtain by smuggling goods from Italy into Socialist Jugoslavia. Their growing fame raises the curiosity of criminal Sefket Ramadani, a bloodthirsty individual whose name sends shivers down many-a-spine. He summons Serafim and Vitomir and asks them to take part to a bank robbery, granting them eternal richness. Only too late they realize that the operation is in fact a set-up: Serafim gets caught by the police, while Vitomir makes a cowardly escape; diving into the Adriatic Sea, and swims his way to the coasts of Italy, where he proclaims himself a political refugee and adopts the fictitious name of Vito Genovese. In years, former Vitomir makes a healthy and solid criminal career. A happy life, one might say, if it is wasn't for the recurrent memory of his blood-brother Serafim perishing in a Jugoslavian prison. Half a century goes by. A civil war has fragmented Communist Jugoslavia into a group of smaller republics and Vito Genovese is breathing his last wish into the ear of Santino, his one and only son.

Bal-Can-Can, Macedonia/Italy, 2004, 139 min., Director: Darko Mitrevski, Screenplay: Darko Mitrevski, Cast: Vlado Jovanovski, Branko Djuric

FESTIVALS & AWARDS:

XXVII Moscow International Film Festival - special award of the Russian Association of Film Critics
7th Motovun Film Festival - Motovun, Croatia - From A to A (the best film in the "Albania to Austria" region)
12th International Palić Film Festival - Palić, Serbia and Montenegro

Click here to get more information on the film.