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Director's Statement
DONKEY is a film of fatherhood. What I am most interested in the father-son relation is the fact that very often we imitate our fathers, and we learn very little from them. We repeat their mistakes instead of learning from them. The plot is situated in Drinovci, a village in Herzegovina. My father was born there. We used to spend there a few days every summer. My father's driving style would provoke mother's panic reactions, which would quickly escalate to a fight due to my mother's temperament. The fight would bring out some fundamental things such as the marriage, having children with such a man, and she would curse Drinovci every kilometer. The fight, which would begin when we set out to holidays, would usually end only on our return about twenty kilometers before Sarajevo. Krenica, the lake in Drinovci, represents a kind of doom of the villagers. Each character in the film, except Jasna and Luka, has swam in the lake on several occasions regardless of its actual danger. With this I want to render a deeply irrational, dark side of the people from Herzegovina, otherwise extremely religious and cautious people. Facts show that every or every other summer somebody drowns in Krenica. On one occasion several years ago divers were engaged to find the body. The dived to eighty meters below surface but they could not find the body or the bottom of the lake. Krenica spit out the body a week later. Donkey in Herzegovina is a pejorative expression for an ass. However, that expression is more used for describing a man. A man who is stubborn, and who is actually a full. Boro is a donkey. And Paško and Ante are donkeys. The ass the call donkey is not that. The ass is their mute friend, their confession priest, as they are not capable of saying what is on their mind. The film takes place in the summer of 1995, when the war operation Storm practically ended the war in Croatia. This timing was chosen for two reasons. The first one is to show the solution of huge family conflicts juxtaposed with the historical event. The other is a respect for a certain authenticity. Namely, the story of the skilful trade with donkeys is true. I was told that story by a man named Boro and it happened in the summer of 1995. This story of trafficking donkeys was inspirational and motivational for writing the script.