Alen Drljevic
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2007 | 36 min
Languages : Bosnian, Serbian
Subtitle : English

In 1995, during official negotiations between the Bosnian-Serb and Bosnia-Herzegovinian armies, Colonel Avdo Palić, the Bosnia negotiator, was ambushed by the Serbs and has been “missing” ever since.  His wife Esma is still waiting for his remains to be discovered. The filmmaker paints this moving portrait of a brave woman, whose dignity cannot conceal her suffering.

In 1995, at a critical juncture in the civil war, talks between the Bosnian-Serb and Bosnia-Herzegovinian armies were held at Žepa, a UN-protected area. On this occasion, the Bosnian negotiator, Colonel Avdo Palić, was ambushed by the Serbs and has been officially “missing” ever since. He was probably murdered and buried somewhere in the surrounding countryside. Esma, his wife, waits for his remains to be found, but none of the bones recovered correspond to her husband’s DNA. Meanwhile, time is passing, her daughters are growing up and she has to think of the future. But the wound is still open and will not heal. The filmmaker paints a moving portrait of a brave woman whose dignity cannot conceal her suffering. “There are still 13,500 people officially missing in Bosnia, Why the silence? People say that enough has been said about this war, but the weight of these events cannot be ignored. They have affected me deeply and they fuel my work” (AD).

Luciano Barisone

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