Director: BORIS DESPODOV
Somebody in Brussels at European Union GHQ had a brilliant idea — let’s connect the Black Sea with the Adriatic with a corridor (and spend 10 million euros). So, take a trip on a connecting road that doesn’t exist between three mistrustful countries that may not even want to be linked.
Filmmaker Boris Despodov embarks on just such a haphazard journey in this droll documentary as he attempts to travel along Corridor #8, massive infrastructural project joining Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. Comissioned by the EU in 1997, the complex rail and road system is designed to connect the two seas and lift economic hopes of the farmers and blue-collar workers along its way. Alas, many euros later, little progress has been made but the film is a fun journey. An unfinished Bulgarian railway tunnel is used for growing mushrooms, threats of roadside Albanian blood feuds expose the growing cultural unrest within and between nations, and peoples’ skepticism about their future degenerates into abject apathy. Absurdly funny, quintessentially Balkan and poignantly revealing, Corridor #8 is a fascinating portrait of one side of the new, unified Europe.
(In Bulgarian, Macedonian and Albanian w/ Eng. subtitles)
Click here to view the trailer.
BULGARIA • 2008 • 74 MINUTES • DIRECTOR: BORIS DESPODOV
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