The Track
By Kit Macdonald
The Track follows three teenage lugers training in Sarajevo on the crumbling, bullet-scarred track built for the 1984 Winter Olympics. Mirza, Zlatan and Hamza dream of representing Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Olympic stage, despite extremely limited resources and infrastructure still shaped by the wars of the 1990s. Filmed over several years, the film is part coming-of-age story and part sports film, and captures the friendships, setbacks and determination that sustain the trio through adolescence.
Sidhoo explores how a generation born after the conflict continues to live in its shadow, and contrasts high-intensity luge run footage with intimate scenes of family life, revealing the beauty of Sarajevo and the resilience of its youth. As one critic perceptively wrote: "You end up cheering because there is hard work by these subjects worth cheering for, and you cry because there’s plenty in the film to cry about."