DEATH IN SARAJEVO

Sarajevo, June 28th 2014. It’s the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, which triggered the First World War. In Hotel Europa, final preparations are being made for a memorial service featuring diplomatic guests of honour – more or less successfully. While a TV crew records interviews with experts and historians on the sunny rooftop terrace to mark the occasion, strike-hungry hotel staff members are planning an insurrection deep within the building’s labyrinthine basement rooms. Something’s brewing in the executive offices too. The hotel manager, still mourning the passing of the 1984 Winter Olympics, seeks assistance from an unscrupulous mob boss, while a drug-addicted cop keeps tabs on a narcissistic memorial speaker instead of protecting him as he should. With a light touch, pointed dialogue, a wealth of characters and life stories and a pronounced feel for grotesque moments, Tanović transfers the entire Bosnian present to the microcosm of the hotel. His film is a satirical allegory on political dreams and nightmares in a Hotel Europe that serves as a stage for hope, violence and death, an allegory in which Bosnia-Herzegovina’s past and present collide in all their disjointedness.