At Thessaloniki Agora 2024, filmmaker Sergej Kreso and DOXY Films (NL) producer Harmen Jalvingh pitched their new feature-length doc project, Dark Blue River. Two industry veterans with over 20 years of experience in the non-fiction business, Kreso and Jalvingh had previously pitched Here We Move Here We Groove at the Greek gathering in 2017. In his latest effort, Kreso returns to a place very dear to him – namely the Neretva river, within the eastern part of the Adriatic basin.
The film notes describe this creative documentary project as “a parable about living in balance with one’s environment, in the face of the constant chaos wreaked by man.”
Before embarking on his new doc, Kreso helmed the features De asielzoeker (The Asylum Seeker, Netherlands Film Festival 2014) and Jack, de Balkan and Me (IDFA and Gdansk Docfest, 2008), among others. The aforementioned Here We Move Here We Groove was screened at Dutch festivals IDFA and Movies that Matter in 2020. It also enjoyed a theatrical release in Germany and the Netherlands.
Speaking of his profoundly intimate connection with the subject of his film, Kreso explains: “This seemingly abstract title refers to the river that flows through the Balkans. My first experience with Neretva took place when I was just six months old. My father took me to the river to ‘cool off’ – he took me by his arms and he jumped with me in the ice-cold water. Since my childhood I felt strongly connected with the river and even though I’m not a real ‘nature person’ nor [am I] religious, I feel she [Kreso refers to the river here] communicates with me in certain way that can only be described as mystical. I had to leave the place during the Bosnian war but over the years I returned there many times, and I’ve met other people who are strongly connected with the river.”
Among the picture’s protagonists are a fisherman, whose nets are empty owing to invasive human activity; a storyteller collecting all the tales and the legends bound to the Neretva; a former soldier and a shepherd who is afraid that a big dam being built by a Chinese company will disrupt the river’s course, putting at risk the beauty and the fragile health of its surroundings. “Even though these people don’t know each other, the river connects them and they depend on it,” Kreso says, adding how Dark Blue River can be described as a “cinematic journey and a confrontation about lessons from the past,” which also “poses questions about the future.” The doc opens at the river’s delta and moves upstream to its source, bringing us closer to the characters, who all “long for peace and harmony.”
Two main questions are guiding the filmmaker through the creative process: “Are people able to live in harmony with each other and nature?” and “Do we carry deep within us an eternal conflict that leads us to the destruction of ourselves and our environment?”
“The answer that unfolds is in the film and creates its dynamics and the drama,” Kreso maintains.
Producer Harmen Jalvingh aims to release the film at festivals and theatrically, and to hit TV screens at a later stage. Currently in development, one of the project’s confirmed key partners is the Netherlands Film Fund. The doc is also part of the company’s Creative Europe Slate application. The producer announced Doxy Films will apply for national funding this spring, in order to enter production later this autumn. The team is looking for co-producers, funds and sales agents.
