La plaga / The Plague
Spain 2013, 85 min
Languages: Catalan, Spanish, Ilokano, Moldavian, Russian
World Sales: Berlinale Forum Office (forum@arsenal-berlin.de)

Director: Neus Ballús
Cast: Raül Molist, Maria Ros, Rosemarie Abella, Iurie Timbur, Maribel Martí

A classic meditation on life and death
Maribel sits by a country road under a sickly yellow sky, waiting for tricks who never appear. Instead, she is greeted by locals traveling the road on their disparate life-paths.

Raül tries to make a living as an organic farmer, but is stymied by drought and a plague of white flies. Iurie, a Moldavian wrestler, young, but no longer young enough to make it in his chosen sport, relies on the extra cash he earns working with Raül. Maria’s respiratory illness forces her from her beloved country house into a nursing home, where her strong personality and intellectual vitality alienate her from the depressed and declining people around her.

Rosemarie, a young nurse from the Philippines, makes her way on foot to work a 12-hour shift at Maria’s nursing home. The two fight over showers, which Maria despises, yet form a truce that owes as much to Maria’s respectful sympathy for her caregiver’s lot as to Rosemarie’s clear-eyed assessment of her job (delivered in Ilokano to a junior colleague, grieving over the death of a client):

“It was soul destroying at first. They give us affection, we give it to them. But don’t let it affect you. Forget him, but keep him in your heart forever. He’s dead, that’s all you can do.”

The miracle of La plaga is that it wasn’t meant to be like this. Director Neus Ballús describes the four-year process that elevated her film from a straight documentary to this impressive debut feature:

“At first I thought that The Plague would be the portrait of a place, and in fact it ended up being a portrait of a group of characters who devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the film. This does not mean that as a filmmaker I have not taken a very active role in selecting all the elements that make up the film. Far from being an observational document, we filmed it as a fiction: we made things happen, we set up the collision between characters and their collision with their own dramas. The entire construct of the film is created to serve the characters: a kind of elevated platform where they can express themselves and from where their most authentic emotions and gestures may arise.”

The film that emerges is delightful entertainment (seriously!) and a milestone for social realism. And it is something more – a classic-worthy meditation on life and death in our globalized society, and a resounding affirmation of human compassion in the face of individual catastrophes.

Epizoda u zivotu beraca zeljeza / An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Competition)
Bosnia and Herzegovina / France / Slovenia 2013, 75 min
Language: Bosnian
World Sales: The Match Factory

Director: Danis Tanovic
Cast: Senada Alimanovic, Nazif Mujic, Sandra Mujic, Semsa Mujic

JURY GRAND PRIX (Silver Bear)
AWARD FOR BEST ACTOR (Silver Bear): Nazif Mujić
PRIZES OF THE ECUMENICAL JURY: Special Mention

A masterpiece of social realism
Oscar and Golden Globe winner Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land) adapts a news story into a compelling docu-drama, persuading the article’s sources to re-enact their health-care ordeal on screen.

Nazif Mujic and Senada Alimanovic are a loving couple with two lively daughters, a happy family despite the stress of poverty. Nazif (who won the Silver Bear for Best Actor and could double for George Clooney) poaches trees from a neighboring forest to heat his home and demolishes cars for scrap metal, earning his share of 153 Bosnian Marks per car. Senada keeps a tidy home, washing clothes in a plastic baby tub, cooking chicken and potatoes, and kneading dough for a mouth-watering bread and cheese dish that gives the family a convivial meal together before the health disaster strikes.

Returning from work, Nazif finds Senada bleeding and in pain. Rushing to the hospital, they learn Senada has miscarried and urgently requires surgery. They have no medical insurance, so the hospital demands 980 Bosnian Marks (about 670 US dollars) for the operation. Unable to pay, Senada and Nazif return home.

For nine cold winter days, Nazif desperately searches for more scrap metal while seeking help from neighbors, relatives, and social aid agencies to save Senanda’s life.

Nazif, we learn, fought in the Bosnian war and lost a brother in the fighting. Yet he has no government pension, child benefit, or health insurance.

Epizoda u zivotu beraca zeljeza is a masterpiece of social realism, shot on a reported budget of USD 23,000. The film spares us romantic cliches of “Gypsy life” to show a family of limited means rising to meet a health crisis. Potential for great interest to US audiences, many of whom share this family’s vulnerability to unexpected, potentially bankrupting health crises.