An ethno village is a particular kind of museum: instead of moving objects into a gallery, it reassembles the setting in which they were used. At Ljubacke Doline, in the hills of Bosnia and Herzegovina, traditional buildings, courtyards and outbuildings are brought together on one site, furnished as they would have been and open to visitors. The interest lies in the detail of ordinary life. Timber and stone construction, roofs, hearths and chimneys, the layout of a room around the fire, storage for grain and preserves, harness, looms, churns and hand tools worn to the shape of the hands that held them: each is a piece of technical knowledge as much as an object of nostalgia. Such places also work as living centres, hosting craft demonstrations, cooking, music and seasonal festivities, so that skills are transmitted rather than merely displayed. The film observes both the collection and the activity around it, in a landscape of pasture and wooded slopes. Filmed in 4K, with close attention to materials, food and gesture, the programme suits strands on rural culture, traditional crafts and art de vivre in the Balkans.
