Fortress Europa

Artjom and his daughter Katja try to smuggle their way into Italy to join Artjom’s wife Sveta, who had emigrated to Italy a long time before and found a job with the last remaining coachman of Trieste, who drives in an original coach still drawn by horses. Artjom, Katja and a group of other refugees are however arrested, first by the Slovenian and then by the Italian police. The refugees are confronted with all kinds of procedures at police headquarters and then moved to a centre for illegal immigrants, awaiting deportation. In the centre, the heavily guarded ‘Fortress Europe’ from the title, they meet all kinds of other refugees, each with their own stories and life histories.Trndjava Evropa is characterised by an unusual mixture of fiction and reality. Zelimir Zilnik became internationally known in the Sixties for his visually expressive and critical films. He realised two projects in Germany about anarcoterrorism that were severely censored.