Informativni razgovori
Namik Kabil
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2007 | 45 min
Language : Bosnian
In an empty old shed, men and women are listening to questions. The filmmaker, who was in America during the civil war, is questioning them about their experiences. The answers are sometimes hesitant, sometimes evasive, sometimes illuminating. They speak of fear, friendship, solidarity. But the war lurks like a ghost in the silence. “Who won?” The answer is unanimous: “Nobody!”
In an empty old shed, sitting at tables covered with plastic cups and ash-trays, under strip lighting, men and women are listening to questions. The filmmaker, who lived in America during the civil war years, is conducting an “interrogation”. He asks: “When did it all begin for you?”, “What did you do during the war?”, “What did you eat?”, “Did you see people killed?” “What lessons can be learned from it?”, “Should people still be talking about it today?” His aim is not to bring out the pain of the tragedy they lived through, but to work – as in a session of psychoanalysis – on the repressed memory of a tragic event. The answers are sometimes hesitant, sometimes evasive, sometimes illuminating. Sometimes the accounts emerge word by word, as if it were hard to remember. They speak of fear, friendship, solidarity. But the war lurks like a ghost in the silence. One woman says: “It’s like having an elephant in the house and people pretending it’s not there.”
Luciano Barisone
Translation BMP Translations
