Ventzislavova/Ničić: Fokus Pokus €uromat
It is an obvious story- to go to the amusement park in Vienna, the Prater, famous also for the Harry Lime tune, Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, but in this case it is a documentary that brings us stories about people, who work at the Prater, many of them coming from the former Yugoslavia and other Balkan countries. As do the Bulgarian and Serbian directors of this impressionistic documentary with a somewhat enigmatic title. There are some quite charismatic and colourful characters among those, the two directors have talked to, and there are some great pieces of montage in the film that follows the back stage life of Prater during a year. The two directors do not come from the classical documentary environment, but from the art scene and the documentary is best when they go for the visual bombardment, whereas some of the talks with especially the foreigners are felt repititive in the global context.
A methaphor for the society it is described to be on the site of the film, and it can be seen like this, including a dose of xenophophia and unfulfilled dreams of a good life from all those who left their countries to live in €urope.
Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia, 2005/2006, 60min
