Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Need a little 'Kontakt'?

A quick chat with Sergej Stanojkovski, director of "Kontakt."

Question: Sergej, your film is a real discovery considering it is a love story set in Macedonia after the war in Yugoslavia. How did you come up with the story?

Answer: We didn't want to make the characteristic "Balkan movie," which sometimes can be quite wacky. ... We wanted to tell a story set in a real world, but with room for creativity and a poetic understanding. ... We aimed for an allegorical love story.

Q: The characters seem to be very metaphorical. Janko is an independently minded man just released from jail, and Jana is a mentally disturbed woman just out of the hospital. Tell us about these characters as being emblematic of the former Yugoslavia.

A: These are two people who live in a deprived society where their one wish is to be loved. Everyone lives in his own world today, and most don't really have "Kontakt" with others. Our two characters live in different worlds altogether - each with their own memories and experiences, without the ability to easily communicate. But they do have hope, and both come to grips with their ability to love.

Q: Are the wounds of war being healed these days?

A: I think this will take some more time. We can see that in Europe even the wounds of the Second World War are not yet fully healed. The wounds will probably stay like scars in people's hearts, but every scar in the heart makes a human being more noble.

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