The Heart of It (2009)

Could the heart of it be non-existent as the philosopher claims, or is it concealed within a cabbage head? This poetic, contemplative film sets out to examine this question in the words of people met in Novi Sad, Serbia, who have their own, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, idea of where the heart of it might lie. Delicately balancing the stories of local people with powerful imagery that both belies and confirms what is said, the film is a portrait of a place and its people that goes beyond the local scene and explores answers that are as complex as human nature. Novi Sad, Serbia. The portrait of an urban society, the Balkans, 21st Century. The people in the center - the people at the periphery. Post-war spirit, but only because we know what happened in Ex-Yugoslavia. The Heart of It? The work which has to be done, day after day. The fact that you have to stoop down to collect a potato, every sack of cabbages has to be tied by hand. Because it is the daily work of the hands which transcends the reality of the present and shows life in itself in its hypnotic stream between the past and the future.