The film’s central motif is the total solar eclipse of August 11, 1999. While the world celebrated, most of Serbia’s population barricaded themselves in their homes and nuclear bunkers, in fear of the lunar shadow. Using this event as a metaphor for the nation's unclean conscience about the consequences of its political choices, the director confronts her country’s wartime and criminal past, and the evil that is still on the loose today.
“I framed the film with two scenes of total solar eclipses, one from 1961, another from 1999. This motif is an important metaphor in the film. People hiding from the lunar shadow in 1999 in Serbia represent a nation's unclean conscience about the consequences of its political choices. Even now, the war crimes, atrocities, and genocide perpetrated in the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo are treated with silence at best, and denial at worst.” (Nataša Urban)
Tuesday, 14 March
Q&A with the director Nataša Urban after the screening of The Eclipse
Free entry to post-screening Q&As