Punk's Not Dead

Mirsa is the former singer in what was once the most popular punk band in Macedonia, but it broke up years ago. He’s now forty, still living with his mother, and he occasionally sells drugs for Albanian dealer Gzim, who in return supplies him with grass on the cheap. Then one day Gzim comes up with an idea: Mirsa ought to get his band back together so they can perform at a benefit concert in Debar, a Macedonian city with an Albanian majority population. Mirsa has an almost herculean task ahead of him: after a period of 17 years, to locate and convince all the band members, some of whom left Macedonia after the break-up of Yugoslavia, to perform together once again in concert. On a minimum budget, director and screenwriter Vladimir Blaževski has turned in a punchy independent road movie about people for whom punk isn’t just music, it’s their whole life. He also uses black humour and insight to touch upon more serious issues and, thanks to the documentary techniques he employs in the film, he manages to achieve a sense of absolute conviction. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)