In the second half of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s a phenomenon was created in the territory of the former Yugoslavia that permanently entered the collective memory of the country. It is about the smuggling of raw coffee from the countries of the Western Europe. The film Coffee Smuggling Routes shows how this happened through conversations with people who were engaged in smuggling as well as conversations with police officers, who were on the other side, who were trying to prevent the smuggling. These are mainly people from the area of today’s municipality of Gornji Vakuf - Uskoplje, where smuggling was a massive phenomenon, due to the fact that a large number of locals were temporary workers abroad, mostly in Germany and Austria, to which there were regular bus lines. These lines were established not to transport expats, but primarily as lucrative smuggling routes. Through coffee smuggling, the film actually talks about a certain period, but also about coffee as a universal phenomenon without which it is difficult to imagine life.

• Screenwriter Josip Mlakić
• Cameraman Mirko Pivčević
• Editing Tomislav Topić
• Producer Ivica Perić




U.G. SCENA
ipmaradona@gmail.com