Rezervni deli (Spare Parts)

Ludvik, a former speedway champion, lives at Krško, a small industrial town near the southern Slovenian border with Croatia. Every night he transports illegal immigrants in a lorry from the Croatian to the Italian border. These refugees are called ‘spare parts’, because many of them are ready to sacrifice a kidney or any other organ to pay their liberty. One day, Ludvik’s boss assigns him an inexperienced young co-driver named Rudi. On their first trip out together Ludvik tests the new man’s reliability; they exploit a young Macedonian woman’s desperation, demanding sexual favours of her. On the homeward journey, Rudi expresses his moral scruples about such behaviour. Ludvik decides to take the young man in hand. They start to meet each other in their spare time and continue to drive refugees through their country, night after night. Gradually, Rudi begins to lose his reservations. Before long, it is not the ostensibly hard-boiled Ludvik but his young partner who proves to be the more merciless of the two … (Catalogue Berlin Film Festival 2003)