Fuse

Bosnian filmmaker Pjer Zalica makes his feature debut as a writer/director with the dark comedy Gori Vatra (Fuse). It's post-war peacetime during the late '90s in the Bosnian town of Tesanj and the townsfolk are busy preparing for a visit from President Bill Clinton. The town has become overrun with corruption due to the years of war, but they work together over a few days to pretend that everything looks fine from the outside. Crooked cop Mugdim (Izudin Bajrovic) and gangster Velija (Senad Basic) keep the town running with an organized crime scheme; Velija has to pretend that his brothel is really a cultural center. Meanwhile, the former police chief, Zaim (Bogdan Diklic), is thinking about kidnapping Clinton in order to get revenge for the probable death of his son during the war. Fuse won the Silver Leopard award at the 2003 Locarno International Film Festival.~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide