Duke Kunshan Professor Travis Wilkerson’s feature movie ‘Through The Graves The Wind Is Blowing’ will be shown at the Berlin International Film Festival this month.
A world premiere for the film, it will be part of the main slate of movies screened in front of a large audience for the Encounters competition, a section of the festival devoted to new cinematic visions.
Wilkerson, an associate professor of documentary practice, described it as the “most significant screening of my career”.
“The film was remarkably easy and strangely fun to make,” he added. “I worked with one main collaborator – Ivan Peric – who is also my best Croatian friend. We loved spending time together and that made the film quite enjoyable.”
Inspired by the Yugoslavian Black Wave film movement of the 1960’s, which focused on the darker side of the human psyche and was openly critical of state policy, the movie follows a hapless detective in Split, Croatia, as he tries in vain to solve a series of tourist murders.
“I was curious as to whether it was possible to create a new film in this vein and whether it would even work or be possible. That movement combined fiction with documentary, and very dark subjects with a lot of transgressive humor. I think it worked out better than I could have hoped,” he said.
Wilkerson wrote, directed, shot, edited, appeared in and did the voice over for the film, while Peric played the lead role and contributed ideas.
He is now in discussions with sales agencies about representation and has received a number of other festival invitations.
“I am pretty optimistic of a broad festival run, followed by limited theatrical bookings in large cities and streaming,” he said.
