The Screenplay

Branko Schmidt and Ognjen Sviličić are the authors of the screenplay for the feature film The Melon Route, originated by the idea of Ivo Gregurević.

It is dramatized by Pavao Marinković and Drago Kekanović.

The producers are TELEFILM and CROATIAN RADIO TELEVISION (HRT).

Some two hundred pages of descriptions, dialogues, instructions and remarks are the basis for the words on the paper to become the pictures on the screen. The black letters on the white surface can so easily picture the life surroundings of the leading and supporting characters, as well as their emotions and thoughts, their fears and their aspirations. Here is how the director Branko Schmidt put it concisely:

"The Mellon Route is the film about people trafficking, PTSD ( Post-traumatic-stress-disorder), and above all, love. The action of the film takes place in the Balkans – a region known for its century-long conflicts among different civilization and religion. The last of those conflicts broke out after the SFRJ breakdown. It was difficult to maintain peace and order in the newly formed countries, so the certain regions became crime harbouring places.

People trafficking – one of the worst evils of present time follows the so-called Balkan route that directs the trafficking to the West. There are many reports in the Bosnian, as well as in Croatian daily newspapers, about the groups of illegal immigrants which were discovered by the police, and the frequent-ones are those informing about the immigrants which lost their lives that way.

The Mellon Route is the story inspired by a true story about twelve illegal immigrants which got drowned in the river Sava on the Bosnian-Croatian border. In the screenplay, this accident is expanded and seen through the eyes of a young Chinese girl who loses her father in the accident. It also shows the relationship between her and former Croatian army soldier, an ex drug-addict suffering from PTSD, who lost everything in the war. The language and cultural barrier between the main characters gives a special dimension to the film which is imbued with a painful comprehension – how hard it is to deal with the burden that can never be discarded – the place of birth."