Robert Pehar

When Slavko's old friend Djulaga dies, Slavko feels obliged to go to the funeral. But in his hometown of Mostar, in Bosnia & Herzegovina, this simple social obligation has the potential to get him into all kinds of trouble: with his neighbors or even with local political bigwigs. Yet if he does not go, his wife will think he's a coward, the grieving family will never forgive him - and he might have trouble forgiving himself. This is a compelling tale of everyday life in a fractured society, and a world where paranoia, comedy and drama co-exist. It is also an astute psychological portrait of a man who is forced to cross the invisible line that divides two communities. Above all, it is the story of a man who lost everything that defined him, when his country disintegrated.

Stigme deals with the universal subject of ideological stigmatization. The film is set in western Herzegovina, in the turbulent period after the Second World War. It talks about the devastation in a traditional environment left by ideological confrontations, which culminates during a tobacco journey. The main character of the film is Dragan, the son of an ex-Yugoslav security-intelligence organization officer Mile (who ends up in prison). Dragan is forced to go on a tobacco journey with a group of tobacco smugglers, believing that none of the smugglers know his true identity.