The Landscape and the Fury

Green hills, forests and fields - from a distance, it is impossible to tell that one of the EU's external borders runs through this seemingly untouched landscape. Farmers work in the fields, harvesting corn or chopping wood, young people do motocross, and an imam calls to prayer. A closer look reveals that there is a rusty tank in the undergrowth, deminers are scouring the area with metal detectors, and passport photos, items of clothing and destroyed cell phones belonging to refugees can be found amid the autumn leaves. An old school building in the village serves as a temporary refuge. Nicole Vögele takes her time to observe, and in THE LANDSCAPE AND THE FURY, which was shot on 16 mm, she depicts the Bosnian-Croatian border region as a place where the paths of migrants intersect with the everyday lives of locals, and experiences of fleeing overlap with memories of war. Her sound recordings of illegal pushbacks by the Croatian police are now also part of the traces that war and violence have inscribed in the landscape. (bik)