LOOKING FOR HORSES, a film by Stefan Pavlović
The Netherlands / Bosnia & Herzegovina / France
88 min, 2021
-Visions du Reel - Burning Light competition, Best Film Award (2021)
-Doc Alliance Nomination (2021)
-FID Marseille (2021)
-Sarajevo Film Festival - Documentary Competition, Special Jury Award (2021)
-Nancy International Film Festival - Special Jury Award (2021)
-Beldocs (2021)
-Corsica.DOC - Grand Prix (2021)
-DOK Leipzig (2021)
-Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (2021)
-Cork International Film Festival (2021)
-RIDM - Grand Prix International Documentary Competition (2021)
-Cambridge FF (2021)
-Kasseler Dokfest - Golden Key Feature Film Award (2021)
-IDFA (2021)
-Porto/Post/Doc (2021)
-This Human World (2021)
-Human Rights FF Zagreb (2021)
-Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival (2021)
-Trieste Film Festival - Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa Award (2022)
Synopsis:
Looking for Horses is a film about a friendship between the filmmaker and a fisherman, who lost his hearing during the Bosnian civil war and retreated to a lake to live in solitude. The filmmaker, son of Bosnian parents, struggles to communicate as he lost his mother-tongue due to a heavy stutter. Despite their speech and hearing limitations, a bond develops between the young man and the veteran, as he shares his world of the lake: full of large catfish, wild horses, wide silences, and dangerous thunderstorms. Where for the fisherman the lake stands for a withdrawal from a fractured country, a land of war; for the filmmaker it precisely means the return to that broken place, the land of his parents. They look for ways to communicate, while the camera mediates their growing bond. Taking the shape of a gentle western, 'Looking for Horses' is a poetic documentary on trauma, survival, and connection.
Direction/Cinematography/Sound: Stefan Pavlović
Production: Stichting artTrace (NL)
Co-production: KAMEN art residency (BiH), Momento Films (France)
Sales: Lightdox
Produced by: Koštana Banović
Editing: Sabine Groenewegen, Stefan Pavlović
Sound Design: Ranko Pauković
Composition: Karsten Fundal
