A Bili Smo Vam Dobri

Highly decorated war veteran Dinko is bitterly disappointed. His country has abandoned him and his friends. The fighters from back then feel forgotten by society; by those for whom they risked their lives 25 years ago. The price they paid was high after all: Dinko's son no longer speaks to him. Like many of his former comrades, he suffers from an severe anxiety disorder. When they occupy the old mill, Dinko initially doesn't want to join his diehard friends. The solidarity amongst old comrades in arms and a boy, in whom he sees a replacement for his son, convince him to join the revolt however. Shortly afterwards he can be seen commanding the team as he did during the war, and yet his ideals soon see him in danger of being caught in the crossfire. Whilst some again suspect corrupt political machinations. others attempt to escalate the conflict in order to send a signal to the country's neo-fascists. Dinko, the famous war hero, was supposed to be nothing more than a figurehead for both groupings. With this, his latest film, Branko Schmidt creates a thrilling, authentic and thought-provoking reckoning with his ruptured Croatian homeland, caught as it is between aspirations for independence, patriotism, nationalism, unprocessed crimes from the time of the Second World War and the myths of the wars of disintegration of the former Yugoslavia on the one hand, and a turbo-capitalism on the other that tries to sweep the past under the carpet, just as the past slogans of brotherhood and unity in socialist Yugoslavia did.