Timeless River

Script and Direction: Anja Medved, Nadja Velušček
Director of Photography: Ferruccio Goia
Editing: Ferruccio Goia, Anja Medved
Music by: Salamandra Salamandra, Havir Gergolet
Sound Designer and Sound Recordist: Rosario Guerrini
Production Assistance: Martina Humar, Sara Hoban
Executive Producer and Co-Producer: Nadja Velušček
Producer: Aleš Doktorič
Co-production: Zavod Kinoatelje
Production: Kinoatelje, 2010
Language: Slovene, Italian, Friulian
Video: 63’

Documentary film about encounters along the Soča river

Synopsis:

The Soča River has always been a border river. Its relatively short course connects two entirely different landscapes: the Alps and the Mediterranean. Indeed, it seems as if it has two personalities. The river also has two names. Soča is feminine; Isonzo is masculine. Soča is water of contradictions; attractive and dangerous, known for its emerald color and bloody frontline. World War I in this area not only destroyed lives, villages, and fields but also the relationship people once had with nature. Survivors had to start from nothing, and it seems as if we still live in this hastily constructed world today.

Encounters along the Soča reveal the contradictions we live in today in our relationship with nature. In comparison with the life of the river, human life seems insignificant, yet humans can now intervene in the laws of nature. At a time when political borders are being erased, we must learn how to set our own borders in relation to our shared river.

Statement:

"Both the river and the film are fundamentally connected to the concept of impermanence. The time of the river and the time of the film are both fleeting and static. We can never step into the same film twice, even though we can stop it and rewind it. The only possible time for both the river and the film is the constant present."

Anja Medved

Awards:

• Scabiosa Trenta Award – Alpi Giulie Cinema, 2011
• Human and Rivers Section Award for the documentary Timeless River, EtnoFilmFest, Rovigo, Italy, 2010