THE BLACKS

film THE BLACKS (Crnci)
  • Original title: Crnci
  • Type: feature film
  • Year: 2009
  • Genre: Crime, Drama, War
  • Country: Croatia
  • Language: Croatian
  • Length: 78 min
  • Directed by: Goran Dević, Zvonimir Jurić
Winter 1991. The recent war in Croatia. Although a truce has just been signed,the members of the "Blacks" - a paramilitary squad who used to do the dirtyjobs - are preparing to retrieve the dead bodies of their fellow fighters, and to blow up the dam upriver to disable the enemy. They are in a city still under siege, when they hear from their headquarters in Zagreb that, thanks to the ceasefire, their squad will now be disbanded. In the grim space of a school-building turned into a military quarters, we find the Commander Ivo and his soldiers at the moment when the ceasefire from one side, and the suffering over the death of their friends on the other, opens up a slight possibility for each of them to "turn a new page" and move towards redemption, despite the moral boundaries that each of them has crossed. Tormented each one by their fears and remorse, they will lead to the outcome of the story - as one by one, the members of the squad meet their fate. We won't see the enemy, but we'll realize that the greatest enemies of those young men are themselves. This vast, impassable forest covered by rain, is the setting for the last actions of this ensemble drama. The gloomy shades of the rainy landscape, shot by the hand-held camera are the appropriate frame for these lost souls.
  • Screenplay: Goran Dević, Zvonimir Jurić
  • Cast: Ivo Gregurević, Krešimir Mikić, Franjo Dijak, Rakan Rushaidat, Nikša Butjier, Emir Hadžihafizbegović
  • Production company: Kinorama (Zagreb, Croatia)
  • Producers: Ankica Jurić Tilić