Corridor #8
Verzio FF submission Duration: 01:14:00 In 1997, the European Union commissioned Corridor #8, an extraordinarily ambitious rail and road system intended to join Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania—neighboring countries that, logically, should already have been connected. The effort would create a pathwa...
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| Institution: | Open Society Archives at Central European University |
| Language: | Macedonian Bulgarian Albanian |
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Bulgaria
2008
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:220f540b-9f82-40ca-a5db-0f1bd74ec41d |
| Summary: | Verzio FF submission
Duration: 01:14:00
In 1997, the European Union commissioned Corridor #8, an extraordinarily ambitious rail and road system intended to join Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania—neighboring countries that, logically, should already have been connected. The effort would create a pathway between the Black and Adriatic seas, put an end to the wariness between the nations and lift the economic hopes of working-class residents along its route. Or so it was hoped. Ten years and millions of euros later, progress is scarcely visible. An incomplete tunnel in the Bulgarian town of Gyueshevo is used to grow mushrooms and store cheese, rather than connect two villages as had been intended. Threats of blood feuds along the Albanian roadside expose growing cultural unrest. And, despite the hyperbole, proclamations of progress and continued promises made by visiting delegates, train travel between Bulgaria and Macedonia is impossible despite their capital cities, Sofia and Skopje, being just 100 miles apart. In this remarkable debut feature, Bulgarian filmmaker Boris Despodov journeys along the haphazard Corridor #8 to expose the ironies and absurdities of the massive infrastructural project and to reveal three countries whose people remain deeply suspect of each other—and even more so of the European Union. |
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| Published: | 2008 |