Ordinary-extraordinary stories about uncommon-common people.
The cycle “Somewhere in Europe” concentrates on the intimate themes, which are linked together by the place in which the action happens – small, often forgotten villages, far away from the neon lights and the noise of the modern European metropolias.
“The Revenge” and “My Father Evgeni” touch upon the relations between father and son. Whereas the first story revolves around the family secret, the second one describes family affairs against the backdrop of Communist Ukraine. The protagonists of Estonian-Ukrainian “Pit no. 8” and Russian “Miner’s Day” are the victims of economic and social changes that swept through Europe over the last 20 years, which gradually dragged the mining industry down, often a source of income for whole regions. “Almost Married” and “Village Without Women” takes upon the issue of search for lifetime partners and marriage. Turkish woman from an orthodox family returns home, and introduces her individually chosen fiancé to her authoritarian father, and three Janković brothers – Dragan, Zoran, and Rodoljub are looking for Albanian women who will agree to marry them and settle in Serbian village Zabrdhe. The section closes with “The Whole World is a Narrow Bridge” – the intimate story of the Slovakian Jews community based upon the photographic memorabilia revolves around Ján Mozolák, who saved from Holocaust the lives of 14 Jews during the WWII.
It is worth mentioning that 5 out of 7 films of the cycle were co-produced not only by the Western European countries such as France and Italy, but also by the U.S. and Israel. The intimate, seemingly hermetical stories from Eastern and Central-Eastern Europe easily cross the borders and find audiences in various corners of the world.