Amor Fati

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Nenad, a shy young guy of Montenegrin origin, living in Germany is getting married to Sanja, Branko's daughter. Branko is a loud and proud man of traditional Balkan backgrounds. After the wedding he insists on driving the young couple home and eventually causes a car accident, in which his daughter Sanja, Nenad's bride is killed.

With Sanja's sudden death, Nenad finds himself confronted with a side of the Balkans he can't identify himself with. Branko claims destiny to be the cause of his daughter's death. At the funeral in the Montenegrin mountains Nenad is faced with the whole family accusing fate rather than Branko. To Nenad's eyes the funeral ceremony appears to be an unbearable theatrical farce. The loud shouts of grief, the monotone songs of sorrow; but above all the guilty one himself giving this boastingly grieving performance of wanting to jump into his daughter's grave out of sorrow and despair for his lost and only one. In Nenad's understanding of sorrow, guilt and responsibility this behavior is not tolerable. In a sudden reaction of anger he challenges Branko to go on and jump then! With this he interrupts the ceremony for a split second, but Branko truly jumps.

On their way back to Germany there is nothing but cold silence between them. Claiming to be taking the short cut Branko navigates the two with their little car onto snowier and snowier serpentine roads, until eventually the path becomes impassable. The car starts skidding, dangerously getting closer and closer to the edge of the narow street in the Montenegrin mountains. They have to repeatedly push the car back onto the safe middle of the road. Branko finally gets himself into an inescapable situation and Nenad suddenly seems to have Branko's life on the palm of his hand. He challenges destiny to force him a confession of his guilt.

Filmmaker Notes

Director's note: Amor Fati is a parable about a culture-clash, about the harsh contrast between "the Balkans"' way of surrendering to fate and living in the moment and the western sense of personal responsibility and its tendency to asign guilt. A conflict I grew up with and couldn't come up with easy solutions for. However telling a story about it seemed to be a step into the right direction.

Amor Fati was finaced by the 2005 Promotional Prize for Joint Film Productions by young German and Eastern / South Eastern European filmmakers, sponsored by Robert Bosch Stiftung Germany.