Cannes Film Festival

Colour / Black and white : Couleur
Lengh : 90 mn
Locations and shooting dates : Minessota or Ohio or Canada - Dec-06 - 6 weeks - HD
Shooting language : BOSNIAN, ENGLISH
Working budget : 840 000 €
Acquired financing : 200000 €

Statement

After the breakdown of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin wall, new nations were created on the territory of Eastern Europe. Communist Yugoslavia fell apart in a brutal civil war between three religious groups; the catholics, the muslim and the orthodox. During the bloodshed battles many took refuge in countries willing to accept them. Many refugees, saving their lives, from this war torn nation, migrated to the United States, looking for a sanctuary for their new beginnings. The life of a man in exile requires unbelievable strength and instinctual survival skills while trying to adapt to a new land and it's culture. This film is about such a man, the loneliness he faces in the process of adjusting to his new life in a foreign country, and the question if such a process could erase the inevitable nostalgia for home.
The story of Buick Rivera is told through fates of two men, from the same country of ex Yugoslavia, one a muslim and the other an orthodox, belonging to the two religious groups that fought for the city of Sarajevo, and the one night, on a road in the middle of America, in which their encounter changes their lives.

Buick Rivera, an adaptation of the novel of the same name, by Croatian-Bosnian writer, Miljenko Jergovic, has been translated into numerous languages. Miljenko Jergovic is considered one of the most important authors of his generation in the former Yugoslavia.

Genre:

Buick Rivera is a road movie that happens during 24 hours in a snow covered American suburb. It's a realistic drama containing surreal elements. Through Hasan Hujdur we discover a story of human dignity and how much a man suffers without self respect. The dramatic structure of the film is set up in three acts with a prologue in which we meet the main character as a child in his native country that no longer exists.
Visual:

The snow as the stage of this film brings about the visual feeling of loneliness and it allows us to separate the main characters from their context.

Language:

Buick Rivera is a bilingual film, with English and Bosnian as it¹s main languages, and the diversity of accents spoken throughout the film give it the audio of America which is composed of so many different cultures speaking the same language amongst each other.

Location:

The film will be shot in realistic interiors and exteriors of this "middle America", so that the town chosen could be realistically portrayed. All the car scenes are realistic with the exception of the scenes in which Hasan Hujdur dreams of driving his Buick Riviera through Sarajevo on the brink of war. Southeastern Ohio, small semi abandoned towns along the river, and once thriving industrial zone are all ideal locations for a film telling a story of two lonely, isolated and miserable characters living far from their homeland.
Small towns inhabited by older people who have given up hope of starting a new life someplace else. Southeastern Ohio is a photogenic ideal of a different than the usually wealthy America depicted on postcards.

Music:

The two such differently spoken languages (Bosnian and English) are dominant and music may suffocate the realistic sounds and the heaviness of them together, so very scarce and only as an atmospheric builder, including the radio jockey as another character.

Synopsis

Middle of a winter night, moonlit covered snow hiding the suburban misery in northern Ohio. HASAN HUJDUR (40), with his bare hands, sweeps the snow from his much adored 1963 Buick Rivera. Driving along a desolate road, Hasan is on his way to meet his wife ANGELA RAUBAL (33). After 10 years of a childless marriage, only routine keeps them together.
Hasan who has lost all his faith in the much anticipated american dream only feels good behind the wheel of his metal friend, the Buick. Hasan falls asleep while driving and the car spins out of control, ending up in a ditch along the empty road.
VUKO SALIPUR (35) stops his car to help, the only other man driving on the same road. This fateful night these two Bosnian emigrants meet on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere, with some unexplainable force bringing them together. Paranoid, they distrustfully shake hands, and Hasan accepts Vuko's offer for a ride to the next town where Angela awaits. Both men could have been much friendlier given their history and the bizarre encounter, yet they remained reserved and hesitant. In the car, however hard trying to erase their traumas, they end up battling, mentally sabotaging each other, trying to solve who is guilty of what for the bloody war in their distant homeland and in the next 24 hours they spend together, they change each other's lives doing it.

Contacts

Production: PROPELER FILM SC Savska 25 10000 Zagreb CROATIA - T : 385 1 459 36 91 - [email protected] - www.propelerfilm.com Coproduction REFRESH PRODUCTION, Pjer Zalica, Sarajevo

Goran RUSINOVIC