UK PREMIERE
Armin

Maltings cinema
Monday 24 21.00

Croatia/Germany/Bosnia Herzegovina, 2007, 82 min
Colour, DigiBeta
Croatian, Bosnian, English, German, with English subtitles
Sugg. cert. 12

dir/scr: Ognjen Sviličić prod: Damir Terešak, Mirko Galic, Markus
Halberschmidt, Marcelo Busse, Ademir Kenović
dop: Stanko Herceg
editor: Vjeran Pavlinic
sound: Tom Blankenberg (sound design), Peter Schumacher (sound recording)
music: Michael Bauer (Werkstatt Raben), Peter Holzapfel, Georg Karger,
Zoran Kesic
cast: Emir Hadžihafizbegović, Armin Omerović-Muhedin, Jens Münchow, Marie Bäumer, Barbara Prpić,
Orhan Güner

production Maxima Film, Zagreb; companies: Busse & Halberschmidt, Düsseldorf;
Refresh Production, Sarajevo
int. sales: MDC Int.

Director’s profile:
Ognjen Sviličić (born in Split, Croatia, in 1971) is a graduate of Zagreb’s Academy of Drama Arts, whose films have been screened at prestigious film festivals around the world. He also works as a screenwriter, most notably on the award-winning The Melon Route, directed by Branko Schmidt.

Director’s filmography:
2007 Armin
2004 Oprosti za kung fu (Sorry for Kung Fu)
2002 Ante se vraca kuci (Ante is Coming Home) (TV)
1999 Da mi je biti morski pas (Wish I Were a Shark)
1997 Puna kuca (Full House) (TV)

Ibro and his 14-year-old son Armin travel from their rural Bosnian home to the Croatian capital, where the teenager is to audition for a part in a German drama. Though their bus journey is delayed by a breakdown and they miss their appointment, they are offered accommodation in the hotel that serves as a base for the production company. Ibro spends the next few days pushing for his son to be given another opportunity to meet with the director but their chances are looking slim. Embarrassed by his father’s undignified insistence, unable to comprehend the much bigger stakes that fuel this desperation, the already withdrawn Armin retreats further into awkward silence.

From this unassuming premise, director Ognjen Sviličić weaves a moving portrait of a man devoted to offering his son a way out and, implicitly, of a country struggling to find ways of recovering from the long-term trauma of the war. This thoughtful, precise drama is a sobering reminder of the many promises on which new Europe has so far failed to deliver. Armin also hints at the exploitative nature of much of western Europe’s interest in the Balkans: the film Armin is to audition for is yet another ‘stupid’ drama about the war, to be directed by an unctuous German director, whose belated interest in the boy’s own story unexpectedly offers Ibro and Armin a step towards self-determination.