T H E M O V I E

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"How will she live? How did they die? One mans truth is another mans lie."

― SYNOPSIS

The movie begins with Olivia, a young American, on her way to Belgrade, Serbia to attend a trial investigating crimes committed at Ovčara, Croatia at the very end of the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Ovčara, near Vukovar, was the location of the cold blooded murder of 250 Croatian civilians and POW’s, mostly unarmed and wounded, by Serbian paramilitary fighters and Yugoslav army soldiers. The victims were transported busload by busload from Vukovar to Ovčara where they were systematically massacred and thrown in mass graves. Olivia claims to be a reporter from America hoping to expose the truth of the Croatian – Serbian conflict. We learn quickly that she is the daughter of a Croatian soldier who stayed home to fight while her Serbian born mother took Olivia and emigrated to America as soon as the first blood was shed. She was lied to by her mother about her father all her life and now she cannot continue without knowing where and how and why her father died.

The emotional landscape in this film, from a war that shocked the world in the middle of continental Europe in the late 20th century, feels barren and infertile. One flower grows. This flower is the relationship between Olivia and Josip.

Olivia befriends Josip early in the movie at the Belgrade courtroom. He also fought on the Croatian side and knew Olivia’s father well during the war, although he parcels this information out to Olivia bit by bit, even though they are increasingly

close. Olivia leans on Josip more and more during the film to help weave her way through her fruitless search for “truth, justice, and the American way”. Olivia was raised in the United States; the social, cultural, and psychological differences between the US and this part of South Eastern Europe are a looming immovable character in The Sixth Bus.

Olivia’s search for the truth about her father is urgent when she arrives. Neither the Serbs nor the Croats seem to want to help her, not out of malice but more out of an overriding confusion as to the purpose of her search. One man’s truth is another man’s lie and all who surround Olivia in The Sixth Bus seem to see no use in searching for the truth in a Pandora’s Box.

Olivia must make her own way to discovery. She is torn between home America (and her pestering mother telephoning daily and her air head girlfriend sending repeated meaningless messages) and home Croatia (land of her birth and the burial ground of her war hero father). She must make her own way towards awareness. Must she know yesterday to know tomorrow? Will her future depend on the past or is her future hers to create?

The Sixth Bus is a moving story of one girl's hard fought recovery and her well-earned liberation.

e-mail: dominik.galic@missart.hr phone:+ 385 99 2905975sixthbusthemovie.com

The artistic organization MissARtIlica 47/2, HR-10000 Zagrebphone:+ 385 99 2905975

Bank account: Privredna banka Zagreb, HR0923400091110126849 MB: 1765132, OIB: 65604774064

― SYNOPSIS