When I Think of the Krka – the smell of bread

A new piece in the series of short documentary films “When I Think of the Krka”, directed by Tomislav Krnić brings the story of bread to us this holiday season

There where the clear and clean waters of the Krka flow, where the cold Bora wind and the warm summer breezes blow, the land is rocky and the fruits sparse. But all that grows and was made here is worth all the effort put into it by the blistered hands of man. This is why the fourth documentary film in the series entitled “When I Think of the Krka” is dedicated to the fruits of human labour – bread, something that we prize during these holidays.

This project was conceived as an ode to the people and the landscape through which the Krka flows. The text accompanying the film, written as a love song to the people who lived here over history, celebrates the simplicity of life and absolute connection with nature. Visually, the film has a mosaic structure, showing various scenes that give a somewhat literal and somewhat abstract view of the text, bringing forth the atmosphere of the Dalmatian Zagora inland plain, the karst, the Krka, and everything else that makes this area so unique. The filmmaker is also the narrator, giving deeper insight into the artist’s impression, as the spoken words and filmed shots carry the same emotions. The landscape of the Krka River offers a fantastic soundscape of the water flowing through it. It flows like life, sometimes slow, and other times crashing down in a waterfall.

Special attention has been given to the details. Shots of grains of wheat, bread, water and fire, or ethnographic elements of traditional embroidery, an old family photograph on the wall, the stone used to build the house, tell the story of people here and the traditions they nurture. Even today, in the area around the Krka River, you can still find the traditional way of baking bread. Even though they no longer use grain milled in the watermills, the loaves are hand shaped and baked under the iron bell in the old kužina, or kitchen. Visitors are able to view what a kužina looked like, and also the miller’s room and grain mill powered by water at the restored watermills at Roški slap waterfall in Krka National Park, where these shots were filmed.

This three-minute film directed by Tomislav Krnić and produced by Digital Media Studio 24/7 was shot with digital film cameras and a drone for the air shots. The entire production was filmed in 4K resolution. Editing and post-production are the work of Tomislav Rupić, and the film features English subtitles.