Josip Mlakić

Twenty years after the conclusion of the Croat-Bosniak War, the two ethnic groups still live in fierce conflict, which is only increased by the recent suicide of a war veteran.

Stigme deals with the universal subject of ideological stigmatization. The film is set in western Herzegovina, in the turbulent period after the Second World War. It talks about the devastation in a traditional environment left by ideological confrontations, which culminates during a tobacco journey. The main character of the film is Dragan, the son of an ex-Yugoslav security-intelligence organization officer Mile (who ends up in prison). Dragan is forced to go on a tobacco journey with a group of tobacco smugglers, believing that none of the smugglers know his true identity.

With the arrival of Austro-Hungarians to Bosnia and Herzegovina and by establishing certain elements of a modern European society, Herzegovina has developed an "activity" that has been one of the leading for more than half a century.

Post-war Croatia, the late 1990s. After the conclusion of the war, the Croatian goverment offers the Serbian civilian refugees, a chance to return to their former homes, which have been serving as temporary residence for Bosnian Croats, who had to flee their homecountry due to the escalating Croat-Bosniak conflict. In the midst of ethnic tensions and unersolved conflicts, a police sergeant named Filip is assigned to investigate the disappearence of an elderly Serb from one of these villages.

Ilija is a member of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) somewhere in Central Bosnia in late 1993. One morning, after a routine mine laying campaign, he learns his younger brother Goran was killed far beyond enemy lines, together with eight other soldiers. Through a friend from the secret service, he finds out the mission was an unofficial one and that Goran and the others were acting as mercenaries. Ilija begins to expose a network of illegal activity involving not only the military, but high-ranking officials. As the investigation becomes more dangerous, his original intention to find out the truth slowly turns into a pathological mission of vengeance.

Faced with the horrors of war, ten different people desperately try to find some connection to society and the human spirit, however, in the face of the conflict and anguish that surrounds their every waking moment, they gradually start loosing their faith in humanity as the pain they witness, and have to go through themselves, seems unending.

Twenty years after the conclusion of the Croat-Bosniak War, the two ethnic groups still live in fierce conflict, which is only increased by the recent suicide of a war veteran.

Stigme deals with the universal subject of ideological stigmatization. The film is set in western Herzegovina, in the turbulent period after the Second World War. It talks about the devastation in a traditional environment left by ideological confrontations, which culminates during a tobacco journey. The main character of the film is Dragan, the son of an ex-Yugoslav security-intelligence organization officer Mile (who ends up in prison). Dragan is forced to go on a tobacco journey with a group of tobacco smugglers, believing that none of the smugglers know his true identity.

With the arrival of Austro-Hungarians to Bosnia and Herzegovina and by establishing certain elements of a modern European society, Herzegovina has developed an "activity" that has been one of the leading for more than half a century.

Post-war Croatia, the late 1990s. After the conclusion of the war, the Croatian goverment offers the Serbian civilian refugees, a chance to return to their former homes, which have been serving as temporary residence for Bosnian Croats, who had to flee their homecountry due to the escalating Croat-Bosniak conflict. In the midst of ethnic tensions and unersolved conflicts, a police sergeant named Filip is assigned to investigate the disappearence of an elderly Serb from one of these villages.

Ilija is a member of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) somewhere in Central Bosnia in late 1993. One morning, after a routine mine laying campaign, he learns his younger brother Goran was killed far beyond enemy lines, together with eight other soldiers. Through a friend from the secret service, he finds out the mission was an unofficial one and that Goran and the others were acting as mercenaries. Ilija begins to expose a network of illegal activity involving not only the military, but high-ranking officials. As the investigation becomes more dangerous, his original intention to find out the truth slowly turns into a pathological mission of vengeance.

Faced with the horrors of war, ten different people desperately try to find some connection to society and the human spirit, however, in the face of the conflict and anguish that surrounds their every waking moment, they gradually start loosing their faith in humanity as the pain they witness, and have to go through themselves, seems unending.

Determined to move on with their life violently interrupted by war several years ago, an elderly couple returns to their restored home. We follow their everyday life through the four seasons. Every day She becomes more absent and lost. Instead of helping her, He acts brutishly, sometimes even cruelly, towards his wife. However, the realization that something is wrong with Her will make Him question his behavior and values.