Viera Cakanyova

To evoke and imagine the near future, we decided to set our documentary feature project World of Walls in the environment of extreme social divisions and escalating climate crisis. The story takes place in an unspecified country that is being destroyed by continuous environmental disasters, located in today’s South Africa, close to Pretoria - Johannesburg. The rich are living inside strictly protected luxury estates with secure infrastructure, while the rest of the world survives on scarce resources on the other side of the wall. People knew these catastrophes were coming years in advance but ignored the fact. The dystopian reality is revealed through the curious eyes of the two child protagonists. At the beginning, the climate catastrophe affects Lorraine’s and Elizabeth’s worlds only subliminally, but as the film moves forward, the severity of incidents begins to escalate and thus increases the tension and the collective concern about the safety of the children. We put these disturbing scenes in contrast with children’s games and intimate interactions with their friends and parents. The threat of “force majeure” is always present, limiting their usual daily activities and infusing the overall mood of the community with fear and anxiety. Confronted with everyday disasters, the girls are trying to learn about the causes that brought the world to the threshold of climate catastrophe. At some point, they come to understand that it is also their parents who allow the ongoing destruction of the planet, making their children’s lives unbearable.

Twelve years after a brutal police raid shattered his dream of becoming a teacher and leaving the Romani settlement on the outskirts of a small eastern Slovak town, Igor has found his calling as a mediator between the world inside and outside the settlement, helping local Roma with official matters and advice. He also supports his sister Veronika in raising her four sons, determined that his eldest nephew Martin will be the first in the family to make it out. But during the hot summer holidays, school and learning are the last things on Martin’s mind. With his brothers and friends, he escapes to the river and the cornfields, where battle games follow their own rules.
Although Igor’s case ended in his favor at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the police officers remained unpunished and active in the region. When disturbing testimonies of new police brutality against Roma settlers begin to spread from a nearby village, Igor must confront not only the violent images returning to his mind but also the limits of the help one can offer while living on the margins of society.
Through the observation of children’s games and the magical dimension of recurring nightmares, the film highlights the importance of collective memory in a place where life is lived day by day, as well as the need for understanding across a deeply divided society.