- published: 24 Oct 2012
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Life is a Miracle (Serbian: Život je čudo, Serbian Cyrillic: Живот је чудо) is a Serbian drama film directed by Emir Kusturica in 2004. It was entered into the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
The film opens just as construction has been completed on a railway connecting a mountainous regions of eastern Bosnia and western Serbia in 1992. Luka, a Serbian engineer, has moved to Bosnia from Belgrade with his mentally unstable wife, Jadranka, and his football-playing son, Miloš, to run a railway station and act as caretaker. Luka is at work preparing the opening of the railway while Miloš attempts to become a professional footballer with the Partizan team. Utterly engrossed in his work and blinded by natural optimism, Luka remains deaf to the increasingly persistent rumblings of war, which has broken out in Croatia and threatens to spread.
When the conflict explodes, Miloš is denied his place on the football field when he must join the Serbian army, and Jadranka disappears on the arm of a Hungarian musician. Eventually, he receives news that Miloš has been taken prisoner of war. Luka considers suicide, but a profiteering acquaintance presents him with Sabaha, a Bosnian Muslim whom he has taken hostage.