On The Way To/From Macedonia

On The Way To/From Macedonia

 

I come back home on the way to Macedonia, to see my friends. "What a time to come back?" my friends ask me. "We are going away from Macedonia"... I stand with the suitcase in my hand and I don't know where to go. Lot of ways go everywhere, but there are only two ways: to/from Macedonia. I ask myself where to go. Which way do I have to choose? Politics, war, where do you come back ... the border is not easy to pass .... Closed in madness, chaos and in the dark of war psychosis, with the wish to get out of my own country, but at the same time, I wish to defend my own house. Damn feeling, mix .... on the way .... The idea of the project "On the way to/from Macedonia" is a result of what happened in summer 2001 in our country. On the way to/from Macedonia - that is the question every citizen of our country asks oneself, today. I think every one of us goes to sleep with this question or is thinking loud about it. The jung man asks himself , if I go from Macedonia - Where? Why? and How? If I stay in Macedonia - the same question. The soldier stayes - he must be (for) Macedonia, I can leave (from) Macedonia .... and once again I weak up with the thougths why everything must be this way. Unrest, nightmare, every day pressures me, the uncertain tomorrow is hunting me. The helicopter wakes me up at 5 o'clock in the morning, and the roof shakes. I have decided - I will go! I have to go away from Macedonia ... Somebody will stay .... and all life long we will carry the suitcase, this is the way we will pass life, with wish and though on the way to/from Macedonia. For how long is the uncertainly empty tomorrow going to meet us .... I was shooting with the regular soldiers of Macedonian army in the middle of the war 2001.

Video produced 2002, January, Macedonian Television. Author: Irena Paskali, camera: Ratka Ilievska, editing: Ace Boskovski.