According to Italian director Isabella Rinaldi, President Jedlička doesn’t appreciate it when Liberland is referred to as a micronation. As a concept it is altogether more serious than that. For him it’s a ‘sovereign state’, and a place where he wants to see solid business opportunities realised. “I want to bring thousands of tourists to the floating Liberland project,” he says.
The micronation, located between Serbia and Croatia on the Danube floodplain, was founded in 2015 in the vacuum created by the ongoing unresolved border dispute between the two countries. Thus far, Liberland hasn’t received diplomatic recognition from anywhere. But Jedlička is not to be deterred. “Our experiment is, I believe, one of the most important experiments of the new century,” he says.
In the film, Dutch Joshi is also somewhat of an oddity, a crazily happy and enthusiastic advocate for Liberland. He takes to the waters of the Danube making videos to promote its benefits (sometimes calling out to the Croatian river police who keep a close eye on him). “Nothing is impossible, I’m waiting for the world to get it,” he says of the micronation concept.
Meanwhile, Serbian Goran and Petr firmly believe in the ideal of a united Yugoslavia, a dream they share with 7% of the population, they say. The pair are funny, dry and very cynical, although Petr cannot understand how a new country such as Liberland, with defined borders, can be created without bloodshed. “Usually countries get created through conflict,” he observes ruefully. What’s more, they worship the memory of post-War Yugoslavian leader Tito: “We will stay on his road and continue the fight against fascism, and the fight for freedom of our people,” says Goran.
Together the Serbs travel to Liberland for a friendly meeting with Jedlička to compare and contrast on their respective goals. The rendez-vous ends with the exchange of a mini-Yugoslavia passport and a set of date-authenticated Liberland stamps (which have a significant eBay value, says Jedlička).
All the time, father Karlo and his young daughter Dunya boat along the Danube in deep discussion on a range of matters, such as how her dream country would look and what she would do should she ever have to go to war. “I would try to make the country as strong as possible so that she would win the war,” she says. “And I would never give up.”
Liberland is one of six films within the Borderline Collection about significant borders surrounding (or dividing) parts of Europe, and which invite audience examination of, and reflection on, what the concept of what ‘border’ actually means. The series was devised by Flemish producer Frederik Nicolai.
Italian director Rinaldi was living in Bucharest four hours or so along the Danube from Liberland when she first read about the microstate in a newspaper, just as Jedlička was celebrating its first anniversary. “I got very, very intrigued because I already made some films in the Balkans and in the former Yugoslavia. So I would say that the trigger for me was regardless of the oddness of this guy thinking he can just make a country in the middle of whatever. It was very much the fact that it was placed at a border that has already seen a lot of intense struggle.”
“The irony is the idea that someone is trying to create a new country next to someone who is nostalgic for a country that doesn’t exist anymore,” she adds. “For me [that] was very relevant and it tells a lot about what we perceive as a nation?”
The film plays it straight, making no judgements on the rights and the wrongs of the protagonists and their purpose. It is funny, because the situation is funny, and absurd, and the characters are naturally engaging. And worthy of Rinaldi’s scrutiny. “Definitely each of the characters has an ideal, a goal for sure. I wanted to… not crush those ideals, not in a mean sense, but to groundthose ideas, and try to [see] them in relation together. When we have the President of Liberland physically meeting the mini Yugoslavia founders, and they give him the mini Yugoslavia passport, I wanted to ground everything to the reality of things so that we can actually think about how absurd everything is.”
Director Rinaldi is from Rome, and is therefore already very familiar with the concept of a micronation. That said, the Vatican and Liberland are at either end of the spectrum when it comes to power and influence. And President Jedlička has not, as yet, commissioned a Sistine Chapel.
“But in this sense you kind of get the point of the Liberland president,” says Rinaldi. “He’s like, wait a second, for you, for everyone, it’s perfectly normal that there is this state in the middle of the capital of another country and nobody blinks an eye, everybody’s fine with it. Why can’t I do the same? Like if this land doesn’t belong to anyone and I’m claiming it. It’s legally possible, so why shouldn’t I be able to do it?”
