Synopsis
Sevdah is a feeling about life imbued with melancholy, yearning and beautiful sorrow. In Bosnia it is expressed through their traditional sad song - sevdalinka. The death of their mutual friend and lover of sevdalinka, Farah, has brought musician Damir and director Marina together. Trying to deal with their own loss and grief, they decide to create a film about sevdah. They create it as an emotional, musical, lyrical and visual journey through the soul of Bosnia, through their own emotions and memories.
Sevdah Pictionary is film that aspires to capture and transfer “sevdah”, feeling of life, which is expressed in most precise manner and in its purest form through sevdalinka. It is unique song, which was born and has been living for 400 years only in one, really small place in the world – Bosnia. In Bosnia, sevdah is as important as life, love, death, happiness, sorrow… and probably because it is so familiar and close to everyone. Sevdah expresses feeling of live, imbued with melancholy, yearning, beautiful sorrow. And sevdalinka is song expressing that emotion. After the war, Damir Imamovic, musician from Sarajevo, and Farah Tahirbegovic, writer, started their journey of researching and performing sevdalinka. Last year Farah passed away. Damir decided to continue the journey. As she was one of my best friends, I felt I have to follow him, making this film, as emotional, musical, lyrical and visual journey through souls of Bosnian people, dedicated to Farah. Instead of sevdah definition, this film is going to offer sevdah vizual dictionary - pictionary. Terms trying to “capture” sevdah will be brought to film by different people and their stories. We visit sevdalinka singers, today forgotten, but huge stars during the fifties’, discuss the old times with them, meet some of the new interpreters. We meet "ordinary" people: a woman in the grocery shop, a man in the barbery shop, taxist... and listen to them singing sevdalinka songs. We try to find out how has that musical form evolved over time, how come that it remained so alive and present among people, what does it say about Bosnia, which way of life and feeling of life is expressed in sevdalinka in the best possible way. Whether we call it Bosnian fado, or Bosnian blues, the fact remains that sevdalinka is truly Bosnian only; it was born and it spread within borders of a small country. However, its beauty, what it sings about, and emotion it conveys, exceeds those borders; they belong to human spirit.
Sevdah Pictionary is film that aspires to capture and transfer “sevdah”, feeling of life, which is expressed in most precise manner and in its purest form through sevdalinka. It is unique song, which was born and has been living for 400 years only in one, really small place in the world – Bosnia. In Bosnia, sevdah is as important as life, love, death, happiness, sorrow… and probably because it is so familiar and close to everyone. Sevdah expresses feeling of live, imbued with melancholy, yearning, beautiful sorrow. And sevdalinka is song expressing that emotion. After the war, Damir Imamovic, musician from Sarajevo, and Farah Tahirbegovic, writer, started their journey of researching and performing sevdalinka. Last year Farah passed away. Damir decided to continue the journey. As she was one of my best friends, I felt I have to follow him, making this film, as emotional, musical, lyrical and visual journey through souls of Bosnian people, dedicated to Farah. Instead of sevdah definition, this film is going to offer sevdah vizual dictionary - pictionary. Terms trying to “capture” sevdah will be brought to film by different people and their stories. We visit sevdalinka singers, today forgotten, but huge stars during the fifties’, discuss the old times with them, meet some of the new interpreters. We meet "ordinary" people: a woman in the grocery shop, a man in the barbery shop, taxist... and listen to them singing sevdalinka songs. We try to find out how has that musical form evolved over time, how come that it remained so alive and present among people, what does it say about Bosnia, which way of life and feeling of life is expressed in sevdalinka in the best possible way. Whether we call it Bosnian fado, or Bosnian blues, the fact remains that sevdalinka is truly Bosnian only; it was born and it spread within borders of a small country. However, its beauty, what it sings about, and emotion it conveys, exceeds those borders; they belong to human spirit.
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