In the world’s last divided capital, young Dutch composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven works with musicians from both communities (Greek Cypriot & Turkish Cypriot) in the United Nations buffer zone – known as the “Green Line”.
We follow the rehearsals – and the search for instruments from Nicosia’s war detritus – for Merlijn’s outdoor composition “Long Distance Call”. Together the Cypriots aim to perform it across no-man’s-land from the streets, balconies and rooftops of this beautiful old Venetian town.
The rehearsals are run out of the UN headquarters, where musicians from the two communities can come together in the island’s buffer zone. Through the performers we come to understand what it means to grow up in an island divided by hatred, minefields, and a line that bisects their country by as little as 3 metres of barbed wire.
The concert is held on UN Day in the world body’s 60th year, and they allow our cameras unprecedented access to the decaying buffer zone that divides the old town, a site frozen in time. At dusk the musicians form a symbolic bridge of sound with a historic ‘combined’ performance – before an unexpected finale in the middle of no man’s land.