Nightguards

Cuvari Noci | Bosnia and Herzegovina

Director: Namik Kabil
Production company: SCCA / Pro.ba

In a one-night introspection we follow Mahir on his duty as a nightguard in a furniture showroom in present-day Sarajevo. Mahir is married to Geraldine for three years and still they have no children. So Mahir becomes convinced that he instead is pregnant. From that moment, he keeps throwing up. His best friend is Brizla, the next-door nightguard at the sanitary ware showroom, who is on a diet. A war veteran neighbor is making their night harder, triggering the alarm system, which alerts the police to inspect. Former soldiers are still in uniforms, but they are now just guards, guarding the furniture from themselves.

The resolution comes with the morning coffee. Mahir announces that he is back to normal and he does not throw up anymore. Director Namik Kabil tells us about big things and matters, and the situation in post war Bosnia, in a small and unpretentious way, in this black intimate and laconic comedy, that makes us smile a bit sadly instead of laughing.

Director Biography

Namik Kabil was born in Tuzla in 1968. He completed his film studies at the Santa Monica College and the Los Angeles City College in Los Angeles, USA. He currently lives in Sarajevo and works as writer, scriptwriter and film director. He has written several TV scripts, as well as the script for Days and Hours, the feature directed by Pjer Zalica. His documentary Interrogation won the Best Documentary Film award at the Sarajevo Film Festival in 2007. Nightguards is his first feature film.

“In Bosnia, today, most of our problems are suppressed and we are living our normal life, faking our normality and many things are left unsaid. In the war, there were sides, clear distinction between good and evil. Now, we are left just to exist, to levitate in the frozen society, expecting no resolution.”
Namik Kabil