In the middle of a mountain forest above Sarajevo, an Olympic luge track lies abandoned and neglected since the 1984 Winter Games, covered with graffiti and riddled with bullet holes from the Yugoslav Wars. It’s here that three teenage boys — Hamza, Mirza, and Zlatan — dream of competing in luge as a way out of a country still suffering from old wounds. Their devoted coach, Senad, volunteers his time to maintain the track and train the boys, but the pursuit of their Olympic dreams is challenged by a lack of institutional and financial support, and as time passes, the boys’ lives begin to diverge.
Centred on a struggle for purpose and meaning, director Ryan Sidhoo’s documentary digs into the boys’ lives and aspirations, revealing a depth of personal emotional responses amidst sociopolitical issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina. An ambitious, clear-eyed, and hopeful look at the next generation striving to clear out the rubble from the past and overcome the sins of their fathers.
Oct 3 & 5: Q&A
Presented by
Supported by
Media Partner
Mirza Nikolajev, Zlatan Jakić, Hamza Pleho, Coach Senad Omanović
Canada/Bosnia
2025
In English and Bosnian with English subtitles
Coarse language, violence
Open to youth!
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Ryan Sidhoo, Graham Withers
Producer
Ryan Sidhoo
Screenwriter
Ryan Sidhoo, Graham Withers
Cinematography
Jesse McCracken, Alen Alilović, Almir Djikoli, Ervin Golubović, Leigh Lisbão Underwood, Will Pugh
Editor
Graham Withers
Original Music
Edo Van Breemen, Johannes Winkler
Ryan Sidhoo
Ryan Sidhoo is an award-winning documentary director and producer whose projects focus on the intersection of identity and culture. Sidhoo produced the feature film Handle with Care, which won the Audience Award at VIFF 2021 and was nominated for three Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Documentary Feature. He won a Webby Award for his directorial work on the series True North and has created short form content for various VICE platforms, along with contributing his skills to industry-leading companies such as Pulse Films, Participant Media, Blowback Productions, Viacom, and NBCUniversal.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Whispers in the Woods
A luxuriant, healing immersion in nature with ravishing wildlife photography, this is the cinematic equivalent of "forest bathing," a trip deep into the Vosges, France, with photographer Vincent Munier (The Velvet Queen), his father and his son.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
King Arthur's Night
John Bolton's film of Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef's musical staging recreates Camelot at Harrison Hot Springs. It's a self-referential piece which joyfully reframes a classical narrative through the prisms of disability, inclusivity, and imagination.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Democracy Under Siege
As the USA turns 250, Oscar-nominated director Laura Nix considers the roots of the current political crisis with commentary from historian Heather Cox Richardson, progressive politician Jamie Raskin, and cartoonist Ann Telnaes, among others.