A calm and tranquil river community may disguise savage currents underneath which can sweep people away. A deluge of rain can flood everything in its path. Everything seems calm in a small Croatian village on the tail of a raging river where Marko (Lav Novosel), 18, is about to experience a life-changing event as his suppressed feelings are set to erupt. ZeCji Nasip (Sandbag Dam) is directed by Čejen Černić Čanak from a screenplay she co-wrote with Tomislav Zajec. The film shares much with last year’s Three Kilometres to the End of the World as it explores community norms and unspoken rules and expectations that shape Marko’s small village. It portrays a place where many young people dream of escaping, others are forced to leave and some accept that to remain a part of community life, they must comply with the adult standards imposed on them.
Marko’s life seems serene at first glance. His younger brother Fićo, who adores rabbits, comes to life through stories Marko reads to him. Also, Marko has a girlfriend, Petras, who is fond of him, and his post-school plans include working as a car mechanic alongside his father. Additionally, Marko is popular, athletic, and in training to be a champion arm wrestler. However, despite all the apparent security and certainty, one part of Marko’s life remains hidden: his close friendship with Slaven who, in his mid-teens, moved in as a neighbour. Slaven vanished years earlier after being disowned by his parents and was forced to start a new life in Berlin, but he has since returned (after the death of his father) and with him, memories Marko desperately tried to forget.
According to LGBTIQ at a crossroads: progress and challenges, published by the European Union in 2024, only 28% of LGBTIQ respondents from Croatia indicated they could openly express their sexual orientation compared to 51% on average in the EU. Similar to Romania, the setting of Three Kilometres to the End of the World, rural districts in Croatia tend to be more traditional than many towns or cities, providing little opportunity for LGBTQIA youth to express themselves. Individuals are forced to conceal their identity if they cannot relocate, or attempt to escape when the opportunity arises. Čejen Černić Čanak and Tomislav Zajec poignantly capture this truth portraying Slaven’s return to his village which he knows is no longer home, filled with a mother who refuses to confront the reality of her husband’s decision to exile her son and, as much as she wants to connect now that her husband isn’t around, figure out how to connect. This is not a village like in Emanuel Pârvu’s film, where men wield all the control. It is a place where phobic violence crosses all gender lines. Women just as freely as men, dominate and imprison their children in a world of isolation.
As the lower waves of a village’s life are gradually revealed, and the past concerning Marko and Slaven begins to emerge, Zečji Nasip (Sandbag Dam) concentrates its focus not on the adults, and the main gossip in the village, a community in which everyone knows everyone, but on the deep emotional bond that exists between Marko and Slaven, some of the most powerful sequences of the film being the almost mythical stillness and quietness of the boys: stillness and quietness where the outside world ceases to exist. It allows the teenage bond which they possess a chance to heal. It is in these moments, that the reality-capturing performance of Lav Novosel and Andrija Zunac is marvelous as the boys somehow, if only for a brief instant, manage to transcend the confines of their surroundings and past suffering to reach a state of feeling, loving, and reconnecting beyond the judgemental gaze of others.
Zečji Nasip (Sandbag Dam) presents a striking depiction of a community trying to oppress its people, as well as the hidden places that countless young people are forced to discover all too often in different villages and towns across Europe despite the progress made in the last two decades. Marko Brdar’s handheld cinematography and Domas Strupinskas’ score, which is both edgy and gentle, supports, but does not intrude on, Čejen Černić Čanak’s intuitive direction, where the community erects psychological sandbag structures designed to contain some individuals while barring access to others.
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