“If the Seed Doesn’t Die” offers a universal and provocative story on the importance of man’s will for preserving one’s identity and credibility. The film was inspired by a two hundred year old Romanian legend about a phantom church floating along the Danube, creating a background for a modern story about two fathers, a Serb and a Romanian, whose lives intersect on this river. They meet a boatman who reminisces on the legend of the wooden church which Romanian peasants drag across a frozen lake to their village, in a time when Orthodox churches were strictly forbidden in Romania. The plot is multilayered. One story covers one of the more serious problems in these parts – human trafficking. The second one paints absurd, almost grotesque societies in a post-communist era. The third speaks of people’s enduring endeavors from the present, as well as from the past. There is also destiny, unexpectedly resolving tragic situations, instantly giving meaning to everything.
This Serbian-Romanian-Austrian coproduction was carried out by an international trio of actors; Bosnian actor Mustafa Nadarevic, Romanian actor Dan Condurache, and Austrian actor Franz Buchrieser. Our audience remembers Mustafa Nadarevic from Emir Kusturica’s “When Father Was Away on Business” and Goran Markovic’s “Reflections”. Among Serbian actors we can recognize Milenko Pavlov, Milos Tanaskovic and Boris Radak, while Dusan Joksimovic’s superb photography gives this film a unique signature.
Long time cameraman/photographer for Reuters, Sinisa Dragin first asserted himself as a short film director. For his engagement in this field he received his first award at Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 1994 for his first short film “The Sorrow of Black Gold”. Numerous recognitions followed for his first feature film “Long Journey by Train” and subsequent “Every Day God Kisses Us on the Mouth”. Dragin: “All my previous films depict the reality I live in. I use them to try and find a key for understanding reality. ‘If the Seed Doesn’t Die’ is yet another step in that direction, an intricate mural of the present, shaded with shadows of the past”.
Fully packed screenings of the film at Rotterdam film festival and an hour long conversation with the author after the screening at Tokyo International Film Festival speak for themselves. “If the Seed Doesn’t Die” is distributed by “Oktobar film” from Belgrade, so the audience will be able to see it even after its Cinema City premiere.
