[ Fokus: Bosnien - Focus: Bosnia ]

As already announced in the Editor-Weblog the Bosnian Institute presents a season of films from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Bosnian Cinema: War & Peace will be shown from 27th - 30th October at
Riverside Studios, London ...
 

... and is the second annual festival of films, which has witnessed something of a movie boom since feature production ground to a halt during the civil war (1992-95).

Yet, the programme also contains a quartet of historical epics from the socialist realist past. Veljko Bulajic recalls the assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip in The Day That Shook The World (SARAJEVSKI ATENTAT, 1975), while both Bulajic's The Battle Of Neretva (BITKA NA NERETVI, 1969) and Hajrudin Krvavac's The Bridge (MOST, 1969) chronicle heroic resistance actions by the Yugoslav Partisans, as they strove to prevent the Nazis seizing key bridgeheads during the Second World War. Bato Cengic turned his attention to the rivalry between the Communist Partisans and the Royalist Chetniks in a Bosnian Serbian village towards the end of the war in Silent Gunpowder (GLUVNI BARUT, 1990).

The conflict is more contemporary in No Man's Land (NICIJA ZEMLJA, 2001), Danis Tanovic's scathingly funny exposé of both the follies of the combattants in the civil war and the naivete of the UN Peacekeeping Force and the foreign press. This became Bosnia's most successful screen export after it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Its star, Branko Djuric, makes his directorial debut with the equally sardonic Cheese And Jam (KAJMAK I MARMELAD, 2003), which focusses on a shiftless Bosnian exile whose bid to win back his despairing girlfriend lands him in deep trouble with some ruthless people traffickers.

This blend of wry humour and bleak realism recurs in Summer In Golden Valley (LJETO U ZLATNOJ DOLIN, 2003), Srdjan Vuletic's story of a son's discovery of his beloved father's mysterious past, and in a pair of fondly acerbic films by Pjer ?alica. The town of Tesanj goes on tenterhooks in Fuse (GORI VATR, 2003) after it's announced that it has a week to prepare for a visit by President Bill Clinton. However, the panicked preparations only serve to bring out the worst of the citizens, who are unable to control the intolerance, criminality and corruption that has been barely suppressed for decades. Unspoken tensions also come to a head in Days And Hours (KOD AMID?E IDRIZ, 2004), in which a nephew calls to repair his aunt and uncle's water heater and finds himself healing their feud with the daughter-in-law they've scarcely seen since their son was killed in the war. Full of small truths and painful affection, this bittersweet tale ends with one of the most charming musical sequences of recent times.

Source: BBC

The programme includes a PANEL DISCUSSION: The role of film in Bosnia as an important social commentator, informing public debate on issues arising from the war and its aftermath and as an agent in the reintegration of society both locally and regionally: with Mirsad Purivatra, director of Sarajevo Film Festival, Pjer ?alica and other guests. Chaired by award-winning film-maker and journalist Fiona Lloyd-Davies.

Click for the detailed programme-brochure [.pdf]

For tickets contact:


Riverside Studios
Crisp Road
Hammersmith
London W6 9RL