Küstenparadies Kroatien

The film presents a farmer who became wealthy and happy from the milk of his donkeys, the Benedictine nuns of Zadar who have guarded a church treasure of immeasurable value for 1,000 years, the animal rights activist Emilio who releases a stranded snake eagle back into the wild, and the old Ciro who built over 350 boats in his lifetime, with a sense of proportion and without any computer at all. With the elegantly gliding images of the helicopter camera, the film shows the labyrinth of the Kornati islands from a bird's eye view. The 149 islands are the peaks of a sunken mountain range. They have funny, sometimes bizarre names like: "Grandma", "Grandpa", but also "Big Bitch" or "Little Women's Ass". Today, most of the archipelago is a national park, a sailor's paradise. Like a wedge, the Paklenica Gorge pierces the Velebit Mountains sloping down to the sea. On a steep slope, the camera discovers a woman in a climbing harness. The choreographer Marija Szekic is rehearsing for 'Little Tragedy', a dizzying performance with which she campaigns for the protection of birds in the nature reserve. Off the island of Krapanj, photographer Stipe Surac documents the work of Dalmatian sponge divers. Krapanj, the smallest populated island in Croatia, has been the centre of sponge diving for 300 years. In the past, the men went sponge hunting all over the Adriatic, often spending months on the road. During Yugoslavian socialism there was even a diving company on the island with 60 employees, but it went bankrupt in 1991. Today, everyone works here on their own account. Ante Mihic, formerly a theologian, journalist and waiter, runs the "library against stupidity", as he calls it, on the island of Dugi Otok. The sleepy village of Sali doesn't have much to offer in the way of variety. The inhabitants are all the more passionate about preserving their customs. Antes' video group records a concert by the donkey musicians. The instrumentation consists of cow horns, rattles and clattering irons. In the evening, the film is shown at the festival in the harbour - great entertainment for all.