Borderline | The Wire

border Croatia - Solvenia
a film by Tiha Gudac
In production
Harsh living conditions have always brought people together in the Kupa-region on the Croatian-Slovenian border, but today the stream of life is cut in two by a razor wire to keep refugees from entering Slovenia.

By constructing an iron fence, right trough the beautiful Kupa-region, Slovenia made Croatia somewhat an unwilling buffer for the influx of refugees coming from Bosnia trying to reach Europe.

Of cause of the fence, the tourism activities collapsed and a whole other bunch of dynamics were generated. The region has become the arena attracting extreme-right nationalists, human rights activists, politicians, police and border forces, migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe.

The film, while quite straightforward, manages to balance beautiful vistas with tough stories and angry rhetoric with governmental platitudes. - Business Doc Europe

Gudac legt niet uit, maar ze toont hoe de grens zich door de hoofden en harten van mensen boort. - Focus Knack

About the director

Tiha Gudac is a filmmaker based in Croatia, where she’s working as a director, scriptwriter and a producer. She has an MA as a Master of Film Arts and an MA in Business Marketing. As a director and scriptwriter and researcher she is working primarily on documentary projects.

As a producer she has independently produced and worked on: fiction, documentary, and animated films and commercial and TV formats, some of which were awarded, or box office success. She debuted as a director with her film “Naked Island” (2014), which has received numerous international festival awards, and has had international theatrical, TV and educational distribution.

In the recent years she has directed, written and co-produced three TV documentary series programs for Croatian national TV Broadcaster HRT.

Currently she is in the process of filming an episode of an international documentary TV series “Borderline”, the episode she’s working on is also being developed as a feature film of a working title “Borderline – Kupa”. She is also developing another two documentary feature films: “Dance of the Dead” and “Godfather of Sali”; both supported by public financing in Croatia.

As a guest lecturer she teaches subjects of documentary film projects development and commercial TV production. Her early work background was marked by years of involvement with the NGO sector - developing international dialogue building and conflict resolution projects, as well as working in PR, working in film festivals and acting in theatre projects. She is a member of: Director’s Guild of Croatia, Croatian Filmmaker Association and Croatian Independent Artists Association.

Credits

directed by
Tiha K. Gudac

Written by
Tiha K. Gudac
Igor Basin
Frederik Nicolai

cinematography by
Darko Herič
Thomas Szacka-Marier

Edited by
Thijs Van Nuffel

Assistant director
Domenico Centrone

Production manager
Iva Tkalec
Setareh Samavi

Sound edit & Design
Rune Hansen

Original music by
Frédéric Vercheval

Sound Mix
Jean-François Levillain

Awards & festivals

Winner FIPRESCI award 
Zagreb Dox, Croatia 2021

Winner Human Rights Award
Freezone Belgrade Film Festival, Serbia 2021

Special mention
One World Festival Brussels, Belgium 2022

Special mention
Rab Festival, Croatia, 2021

World premiere
Dok.Fest Munchen, 2021

Opening Film
crossing Europe, Linz Austria, 2021

Official Selections:
Dokufest, Prizren, Kosovo, August 2021
Human-Rights Docs competition

Atlantida Film Festival / Filmin, August 2021
Spanish premiere

Liburnia Film Festival (LFF), Opatija, Croatia, August 2021

Rab Festival, Croatia, 2021

Freezone Festival Belgrade, Serbia, 2021

DOKUDOC, Maribor, Slovenia, 2021

Balkan Film Week, Leipzig, Germany, 2022

One World Festival / Jedensvet, Prague, Czech Rep., 2022

Festival Migrantskega Filma, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2022

Underhill Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2022

Production Details

an Off World production

in co-production with
Kinoteka

in co-production with
VRT Canvas
RTV Slovenija

in co-production with
Relation04 Media
Inscript
URGH!
Umedia i
n association with Ufund

with the Support from
HAVC - Croatian Audiovisual Center
Flanders Audiovisual Fund
Brussels Capital Region
The Belgian Federal Government Tax Shelter

With the Support from
Norwegian Film Center
Filmfond Nord
Creative Europe Programme - MEDIA of the European Union