Caves
A film by Oliver Ciric
Concerned about their personal safety in the shadow of an expanding mine, Damin, a Romani teenager, has taken up boxing to defend his village.
Bor, Serbia. The Chinese company Zijin has bought out the copper mines, expanding them to swallow homes, town centers, and entire villages. The most recent victim of this expansion is the Romani settlement of Zmajevo, which has come to be encircled by the mines. Inspired by these changes, and concerned for their immediate safety, many of the Romani have taken up boxing in order to protect themselves. Now, Zmajevo is under the threat of destruction as Zijin has secured the rights to the land upon which it lies. The residents of Bor and Zmajevo go about their days, working to make ends meet and regularly training to box as this cloud of anxiety hangs over their heads.
Filmic Methods & Visual Style: With our film, we hope to reflect the agency these children seek through a participatory method where the subjects themselves are given a camera to film their experiences. The end result will be a film that combines first-hand experiences filmed by the kids with an observatory perspective by the filmmaker.
Tone: The people of Zmajevo speak from deeply personal and often conflicting perspectives, and without independent evidence, many of their claims cannot be corroborated. Rather than trying to resolve those contradictions, we want to embrace them. By allowing people to speak for themselves, the film creates a deliberately subjective environment in which memory, rumor, fear, and resentment all become part of the reality we are documenting. In that sense, the film is not ultimately about whether Chinese companies are “taking over” the mines or the village. It is about the way a community constructs a narrative to make sense of enormous changes happening around it. And, hopefully, how that narrative can become meaningful regardless of whether every part of it is objectively true.
Sound will play an important role in expressing this tension.We want the film to move between these extremes, contrasting the overwhelming sounds of the mines to the pointed punches of the boxers, while allowing the camera to hypnotically linger when it matters. Our aim is a film that feels propulsive without being relentless—immersive in its rhythms, but patient enough to let the people of Zmajevo define the world on their own terms.
Future Subjects: The material that we have shot thus far moves through the narratives of the children, the boxers, and the common laborers of Zmajevo. However, one missing link remains: the Chinese miners themselves. The mines that have transformed the village often feel strangely distant, despite being an overwhelming presence in the town the laborers are alienated by their foreign status and a different language. In the same way that the camera becomes personal for the Romani in this village, we hope to create a dialectic with the new Chinese presence that has arrived in this village, seeking to capture the entire spirit of Zmajevo.
For our project, we have hired a Chinese translator and are in contact with the media liaison of the Zijin mines to set up interviews with the miners themselves, which will be necessary to complete the picture of Zmajevo.
About the Filmmaker:
Oliver Ciric is a Serbian-American filmmaker based in Boston, MA. He’s a recent film production graduate of Emerson College, where he worked on a variety of award-winning films. His feature length documentary The Bird (Or: Marty, Clown) (2021) premiered in-competition at the 14th Beldocs IFF, where he was the youngest filmmaker to have a film in competition. His recent short film, “The Noblemen,” is currently in the film festival circuit.
Director’s Statement:
Taking the bus with Damin, we left Zmajevo for the center of Bor, where he trains his boxing. Surrounded by his coaches, teammates, and friends, he leaned in to say “Oliver, here I am no longer Damin (a traditional Romani name), call me Nenad (a traditional Serbian name).” At this point, I was loosely exploring the prospect of making a documentary in Bor, but this sentiment of Nenad’s touched me as I realized that it was poignant in my own life. As a Serbian-American, I had two separate answers to the question “where are you from?” If I were asked this in the U.S., I would say I was Serbian; elsewhere I would say I’m American, but it wasn’t until Damin asked me to call him Nenad that I realized how inherent the compartmentalization of my own identities were.
Like many other filmmakers before me, I set my sights on the historically significant copper mining town of Bor, Serbia. Bor was one of the first outposts of French investments in the Balkans; a priority for the Nazis during the invasion of Yugoslavia; a poignant setting for pioneering Yugoslavian artists such as Dušan Makavejev. Today, it is assessed to be one of the largest copper deposits in the world as multiple countries still vie for influence within the town. I saw Bor as a city that continues to hold its status as the weathervane for Serbia, as the town rapidly became an outpost for Chinese Neo-colonialism.
Most importantly, Bor is the ultimate test of national identity in contrast to one’s place. Deep in the heart of Serbia, Bor lies as a town that is dominated by the Chinese, the Romani, and the Vlachs, perhaps making it one of the most diverse cities in the Balkans. Being here, I wondered: what makes someone Serbian? I have felt less Serbian in my life because I didn’t live in Serbia, but is living in Serbia enough to make one feel Serbian?
With open arms, I was invited into the Romani community of Zmajevo, a village that doesn’t even appear on maps nor government censuses. I heard tales of conflicting identities, a helpless political situation, and an uncertain future. In these children, I saw myself, conflicted with my own identity and unsure of how Serbian I am. Beyond this, I saw people who are Serbian-speaking citizens of Serbia, yet are discriminated against within their own country. I saw myself within this community of people who are conflicted about their identity within their environment.
Filming in the village one day, Damin emerged from his home, walked into my frame, proudly proclaiming “I am a boxer! Watch me fight!” Seeing the bold charisma and perseverance of this young man, I knew I had a story that must be told.
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