The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar (2011)

Original title

Kako sam zapalio Simona Bolivara

Directed by

Igor Drljaca

Genre

documentary film

Country

Canada

Runtime

6 min

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A director looks back at his childhood belief that he caused the Bosnian Civil War by trying to avoid a bad grade on a school project. He uses old family home videos to show how his small personal actions mixed with huge world events. The film becomes a story about losing innocence and the strange mix of feeling powerful and powerless as a child.

personalreflectivenostalgicintrospectivemelancholichistoricalchildlikethoughtful

What happens

The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar (Kako sam Zapalio Simona Bolivara) is a 2011 Canadian documentary short film directed by Igor Drljaca. The film recounts Drljaca's childhood belief that he was personally responsible for the outbreak of the Bosnian Civil War because he tried to avoid a poor grade on a school assignment. He revisits family VHS tapes to recount how his childhood collides with forces he couldn't possibly comprehend. In doing so, he transforms this deeply personal story of trauma into a much more universal reflection on lost innocence, and how being a child can be accompanied by simultaneous, paradoxical feelings of both boundless power and crushing powerlessness. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, and was named to the festival's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list. It had its international premiere at South by Southwest in 2012. It was a nominee for Best Short Documentary at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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