Evaporating Borders by Iva Radivojevic Cyprus/USA, 73min, 2014, color,
Essay documentary, Japan Premiere sneak preview!
An essay in five parts, Evaporating Borders offers a series of vignettes, poetically guided by the filmmaker’s curious eye and personal reflections. Through the people she encounters along the way, the film dissects the experience of asylum seekers in Cyprus : A PLO activist and exile from Iraq is denied asylum within 15 minutes; neo-nazi fundamentalists roam the streets in an attack on Muslim migrants; activists and academics organize an antifascist rally and clash with the neo-nazis; 195 migrants drown in the Mediterranean.
Originally from Yugoslavia and an immigrant to Cyprus, Iva Radivojevic investigates the effects of large-scale immigration on the sense of national identity in one of the easiest ports of entry into Fortress Europe. Poetically photographed and rendered, the film passionately weaves the themes of migration, tolerance, identity and belonging. Executive Producer: Laura Poitras (Academy Award winning director of Citizenfour).
Festivals: Rotterdam, SXSW, Hot Docs, Human Rights Watch London & NY, among many others. Also screened at the Opening Ceremony of the European Parliament in Brussels in May as they discussed the world’s immigration issue.
Credits:
Writer, Director, Editor: Iva Radivojevic
Executive Producer: Laura Poitras
Producers: Landon Van Soest/Leandros Savvides
Co-Producer: Alex Primas
Consulting Editor: Jay Rabinowitz
Music By: Alexander Berne/ Stian Westerhus/Sandy Brour/Monsieur Doumani
Cinematography: Iva Radivojevic
Director Bio:
Iva Radivojevic is an award winning filmmaker who spent her early years in Yugoslavia and Cyprus before settling in NYC. Her work explores the theme of identity, migration and immigrants. Iva’s films have screened at numerous film festivals and venues including SXSW, IFF Rotterdam, HotDocs, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), PBS and were published by the New York Times Op-Docs.
Her collaborative film Matthew 24:14 won the 2011 International Documentary Challenge competition for Best Director, Best Film and Best Use of Genre. Iva was named one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film of 2013 by Filmmaker Magazine. Her first feature length documentary Evaporating Borders, was recently nominated for an International Documentary Association (IDA) Award as well as a Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight Award and is currently touring the world. Follow what she’s up to at www.ivaasks.com.
Director’s Statement:
Originally from Yugoslavia, a country that no longer exists except in books and films, my family immigrated to Cyprus to escape political unrest. Raised in Cyprus, I’m approaching the film as a personal exploration of what it means to have a hybrid existence in which one is always searching for an identity.
The title “Evaporating Borders” corresponds to the idea that the erosion of boundaries and borders (both physical and metaphoric) defamiliarize the narratives of selfhood through which identities take shape and reproduce themselves. The flow of populations, commodities and information is associated with loss of traditions, memories and histories. This poses a threat to national identity and translates to discrimination, prejudice, and intolerance. What is apparent in Cyprus is emblematic of hierarchical racial structures around the world, looking to cultures and peoples outside Western borders from a position of superiority.
While the film examines what it means to disassociate from these beliefs, it also explores the principles of inequality precipitated by certain cultures over others, classes against other classes, the concept of motherland, and an essentialized conception of identity. Though the film is told from my personal experience and point-of-view, it is less about my own story than an exploration of the mentioned themes.
I am approaching “Evaporating Borders” as a visual essay, where the narrating protagonist is a transparent guide that lends intimacy and personal nuance to the storytelling through direct observations. The island is introduced through my own migration where the narration introduces and concludes the film leaving the body of it to be told through characters encountered along the way.
The narration is a stream of consciousness that follows observations and emotions about what it means to be without a country. As such, the accompanying images are interpretive and suggestive, not expositional or directly illustrative. Like the migrants themselves the narrator is also undefined, hybrid and changing as she looks for her own identity.
By challenging the narratives of selfhood, the film proposes a search for broader harmonic relationships; inviting the viewer to delink from preconceived, culturally engrained paradigms that color the way we interact with the people and environment around us.
The film received a Princess Grace Special Project Award and a short journalistic piece based on the material from the film has been featured on The New York Times Op-Doc page.
Production and Sales Contact
Iva Radivojevic
Ivaasks Films
New York, USA
iva@ivaasks.com
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