The five-storied block of flats, built as a hall of residence for construction workers, is today inhabited by men who came from Bosnia as young adults, worked in Slovenia for thirty years as construction workers and were left stranded after the construction companies had gone bankrupt. Young people from dysfunctional families have occupied the first floor, which also houses dislodged people searching for the cheapest lodgings they can find. Most of them have only a bed; nobody calls this place their home. Apart from being socially marginalised, the dwellers have another thing in common: stories.
Metod Pevec moved into a former workers’ residence and shot the documentary about its current occupants single-handedly, without the aid of a film crew.
“All the press was ever interested in was simply a phenomenon. Say, the exploitation of workers. Their stories were written beforehand. The protagonists of media stories tend to be villains, in our case tycoon directors, the workers were cast in minor or even illustrative roles. My aim was the polar opposite. I was interested in people, the inhabitants of this residence, their feelings, their disillusionment, their proletarian failure, in a word, the human dimension.” (Metod Pevec)
Metod Pevec
Born in 1958 in Ljubljana. Film director, screenwriter, author and actor, Pevec graduated in philosophy and comparative literature from the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. While a student and as a graduate, he was cast in numerous Slovenian and Yugoslav feature films and TV-series. His most remarkable appearance was the role of Partisan Berko in See You in the Next War (1981) by Živojin Pavlović.
filmography
1995 Carmen
2003 Pod njenim oknom (Beneath Her Window)
2006 Film pred oltarjem (TV doc)
2007 Estrellita – Pesem za domov (Estrellita – Take Away Song)
2008 Hit sezone (TV)
2011 Lahko noč, gospodična (Good Night, Missy)
2011 Aleksandrinke (The Alexandrians) (doc.)
2012 Vaje v objemu (Practising Embrace)
2015 Dom (Home) (doc.)