Bosnia, 111 minutes
Dir: Pjer Zalica (Days and Hours)
Winner — Silver Leopard, Locarno International Film Festival
Set in the post-war era of peace in the late 1990s, Fuse depicts the Bosnian village of Tesanj as it prepares for a visit from President Bill Clinton. Muslim and Serbian townies grudgingly attempt to join forces to present a positive and unified image, despite the town’s state of disarray and post-war corruption.
A crooked cop and a gangster form a partnership, turning the local brothel into the town’s cultural epicenter, but efforts to cooperate quickly unravel as old resentments and ethnic distrust erupt. Amidst the escalating chaos, a grief-stricken and delusional police chief whose son died in the war plots revenge against Clinton.
Fuse is an acidly funny, and sometimes tender exploration of Muslim and Serb neighbors in Bosnia struggling to imagine a future together in the aftermath of a brutal war.
In August, 2006, Cinemondo host Peter Scarlet attended the Sarajevo International Film Festival. While there he sat down director Pjer Zalica to talk about Fuse, and how it represents the immediate post-war experience in Bosnia.
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