The Same Song (2023)
“I was born with an excess of black bile in my heart.” An unearthed voice tells a story of an inherited curse, layered in the form of a heavy residue of melancholy. A song, produced by the rhythm of crying tremors, releases the accumulated pain carried across generations. The Same Song becomes a symbol, representing a shared heritage of the West Balkans that transcends national and ethnic boundaries. It echoes within the concrete walls of 1960s construction sites in Western Europe, evoking memories of ‘gastarbeiters’ - migrant workers’ countless departures and endless farewells. That same song is heard, blasting out of the tinted BMWs, as the diasporic generation flies south towards the summer. The Same Song is a short experimental film combining vocal traditions and the intangible heritage of the West Balkans with speculative fiction.