Koridor #8 (2008)

According to the European Union's planning, the shortest way from the Black Sea to the Adriatic coast and further down toward southern Italy goes from the Bulgarian port city Bourgas through Macedonia and on into the Albanian port Durres. A route meant to bring together 926 kilometers of Europe whose populations have been politically separated for centuries. So far, however, only a fraction of the infrastructural project has been realized. Boris Despodov decides to set off on this journey anyway. Shortly before Macedonia he leaves the road and gets on a train, which takes three hours to get through the last 30 kilometers to the border. The new-old neighbors find it difficult to come together. In southern Bulgaria no one has any idea what "an Albanian" might be, on picturesque Lake Ohrid prejudicial rumors are being spread about stolen Mercedes…

“Corridor #8 brings snapshots from the edge of pot-holed asphalt slopes and green fields, over which intercontinental traffic was one day meant to roll, together with a tragicomic travel report from a region where the dream of a little happiness – as in small shops guaranteeing survival – set up mutual animosities and all sorts of oddities in everyday life. A portrait of a somewhat different vision of a unified Europe”.
Bernd Buder

Awards: Berlin 2008 - "International Forum of New Cinema"