The Sky Above Zenica

From a distance, it looks as if one of the seven gates of hell has opened in the middle of Zenica, a medium-sized town about 50 kilometres northwest of Sarajevo. However, the fact that it is an enormous steel plant spewing its toxic smoke over Zenica, making it one of the three most polluted cities in the world, does not make the situation much better for its more than 100,000 inhabitants. And now they have had enough. In a common fight for a sustainable future, they have formed the organisation Eko Forum. But like a Greek tragedy, the conflict of interests is bigger than everyone involved. The local politicians need to deliver jobs to get re-elected, while the EU co-finances both the steel production and the new bicycle lanes which ironically are part of a marketing campaign to brand Zenica as a ‘Green City Project’. The dragon has many faces, but the city’s citizens are not about to give up. Zlatko Pranjic and Nanna Frank Møller’s film uncovers in a sober and humane way the complex mechanisms that stand in the way of a sustainable future all over the world, told through the eyes of the people living in the consequences of the present. (CPH:DOX)