|
|
A war accumulates such a quantity of conjectures and interpretations capable of almost spontaneously concealing that central nucleus of lost humanity in need of being remembered of which the “Bosnian Identity Project” is nourished. The retractions and negations here meet the obstacle of documentation that exalts the truth into becoming a medium of reflection of reality. A reality narrated through the eyes of the children during that war; those children who, today, look forward with optimism to a new beginning. The consequences of the armed conflict which destroyed Bosnia & Herzegovina in the mid 90’s, are apparent in the people, in their continual search to recuperate self-awareness, more than any overtone, and in the way they define themselves through the choice of language and movements as seen in the central characters of this story. Hope, disillusionment, joy and difficult moments are all told in first person, becoming the un-written script of this work: vicissitudes that speak for themselves. An intimate and delicate tale regarding the complex post-war context in which every individual has lived his life in Bosnia. To the cauldron of short memory constituted of the fleeting collective imagination fostered by traditional media, the importance of lesser stories over-laps: more in depth and heart-felt. I have chosen to punctuate each chapter of the story with photographic shots that freeze moments and situations with images in movement. The Bosnian Identity is my way of seeing Bosnian and Muslim culture from within that circumnavigation of people and their way of life which have always formed the soul of a multiethnic Bosnia, currently washed away with blood. From a filmic point of view, the characters’ stories in the interviews, all of which were shot using only daylight so as not to mutate their trust in me, are accompanied by scenes from daily life which were filmed using just a handheld steady cam. The extraordinariness of that normal passing of the days, seemingly always the same yet unique, is the scream for life in a land soaked in death: a portrait of the Bosnian society to come, travelling along a steady path in order to rediscover itself, to recuperate from the past in an experiment to find and recognise a common Bosnian identity. Light and shadow illustrate the stories, revealing a thin line bordering on life and death which is present throughout the entire tale. Direct sound preludes the melodies that accompany the look towards a comprehensi
|
