BELGRADO-BAR

The railway line from the Serbian capital Belgrade to the Montenegrin seaside town Bar was opened in 1974, when Serbia and Montenegro were still provinces of the same country, the former Yugoslavia. After the secessionist wars, these two regions alone formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that, pressured by a Montenegrin independence movement, has meanwhile been transformed into a loose Union of Serbia and Montenegro. The 285-mile railway line looks like a last string that holds the two regions together.

To make this rail movie, director Vulk Janic, who was born in Sarajewo but works in the Netherlands, took a train from Belgrade to Bar and talked with a few passengers. Dabbing their sweaty foreheads, they have heated discussions about whether Serbs and Montenegrins make up one people, about the secession, about the past of the former Yugoslavia and about the uncertain economical future.

Stories that bear the marks of the recent wars. But there is also time for a philosophical conversation at the bar about Being and Time. Janic also films outside the train. A Serb who tries to make some extra money by selling carpets on the coast, a conductor with a second career as a masseur and mesmerist, and a young Bosnian widow who has found peace in a solitary railway office in the mountains.