The river flows through Sandbag Dam (Zečji nasip) like an unspoken truth, steady and threatening, always pressing against the fragile barrier meant to contain it. In Čejen Černić Čanak’s tender and unflinching film, the floodwaters echo a different kind of force: desire held back, longing hidden, silence becoming its own weight.

At the centre is Marko, played with remarkable presence by Lav Novosel. He is a teenager in a Croatian village where strength is measured in arm wrestling matches, girlfriends, and duty to family. Yet his world begins to shift when Slaven, his childhood friend, returns for his father’s funeral. Their history is heavy. Years earlier, Slaven was forced out by his parents after being caught with Marko. Marko stayed, building his own walls by arm wrestling because it was his father’s sport and taking on a girlfriend because it was expected. Their reunion, full of glances and hesitations, shows how the past is never truly gone.

Černić Čanak films these lives up close. With cinematographer Marko Brdar, she keeps the handheld camera close to Marko, tightening the frame as his sense of confinement grows. Editing, shaped by Slaven Zečević, contrasts long, lingering takes with abrupt jump cuts, a rhythm first discovered during camera rehearsals. The sound design by Julij Zornik, which won at Pula, layers the river, the village, and the silence between words with subtle precision. Domas Strupinskas’ score, also awarded, gives the film a quiet pulse, never overwhelming but always present beneath the surface.

The sandbags that the villagers pile against the river are more than just protection from the flood. They echo the walls that families and neighbours build around Marko and Slaven to keep them apart. Every bag stacked along the riverbank mirrors the silence, the expectations, and the watchful eyes of the community. The flood threatens to break through, just as desire pushes against what has been buried for years.

Performances make these ideas deeply affecting. Novosel, who received the Breza Award for best debutant at Pula, carries the weight of both strength and fragility. Andrija Žunac, recognised with the Golden Arena for best supporting role, brings quiet gravity as Slaven. Leon Grgić as Fićo adds innocence and tenderness, while Franka Mikolaci and the older generation round the family portraits with nuance. The result is a set of performances that feel lived rather than acted, shaped by the director’s long process with her young cast:

“We rehearsed for seven months. They were in their first year of acting school, and I knew we needed that time to prepare.”

Černić Čanak’s own connection to the story began from the very first encounter with Tomislav Zajec’s script:

“I read it, and I just felt that I had to do it. The emotions were so strong that I was eager to make this film.”

The film took over a decade to reach the screen, and its existence remains rare. As Černić Čanak reflected after the Croatian premiere:

“This is only the second queer film in Croatia in twenty years. I was very curious how it would go, and the reactions showed that people really felt the film.”

Since its Berlinale premiere, where it was nominated for both the Crystal Bear and the Teddy Award, Sandbag Dam has travelled widely. It received a Special Mention at Crossing Europe in Linz, screened in Miami at Outshine, appeared in Kraków and Istanbul, returned home for Pula where it was awarded across acting, music, and sound, and continues on to Gdańsk this August. Each stop has given the film more weight, not through spectacle but through quiet persistence. The longer it travels, the more its silences and fragile moments seem to gather force, as if the story itself refuses to be contained.

Sandbag Dam holds its breath, waiting, and in that stillness it tells one of the most necessary queer stories to emerge from Croatia in recent years.