Mostar united creative documentary by Claudia Tosi

Mostar united a film by Claudia Tosi Developed with the support of

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Mostar. The town is divided in West and East by “the Boulevard”

INDEX SYNOPSIS FILM TREATMENT Mostar and me Nenad’s challenge Nenad and the war Nenad and his work Nenad and his family Nenad, the”war children” and their parents “Mostar in my heart, Velez to my grave” Nenad and the “grown ups” football derby Nenad and the football derby of the “war children” I am on Nenad’s side DIRECTOR’S NOTES DRAMATIC STRUCTURE VISUAL APPROACH APPENDIX

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Mostar united

a man’s struggle to overcome the city’s ethnical divide through football a film by Claudia Tosi

SYNOPSIS The ferocious nationalism of the former-Jugoslavia divided Mostar by ethnic grouping. This symbol of the coming together of East and West is today a torn city. Everything comes in twos - from electricity distribution to the mayor: for 6 months a Croatian nationalist with a Muslim deputy, and then vice versa. Nenad, a former professional footballer for Velez, historically the team of all Mostarians, will not yield to this folly. His weapon is the football school he has created and runs. He teaches hundreds of “war children” to play together without asking who is Serb, Croatian or Muslim. Nonetheless, when they scatter across the city, they are once again enemies, separated by ethnic membership. Nenad will not accept this and cherishes the dream of having his old Mostar back, the one that was the “Montmartre of the Balkans”.

FILM TREATMENT Mostar and me Eleven years after the end of the war in Mostar I stand on the Boulevard that once was the no man’s land, the front line. Still today, this is the street that divides Mostar in two. The gutted buildings are still there to remind us of what happened.

Today, the firecrackers are exploding; some people throw stones and shout threats. It is the day of the city football’s derby between Velez, the symbol of all Mostar (and even Jugoslavia) before the last war, and Zrinjski, the nationalist Stefilm via Berthollet 44 - 10125 Torino (Italy) - tel +39 011 6680017 - fax +39 011 6680003 - www.stefilm.it - info@stefilm.it

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Croatian team reborn with the conflict. The city seems swept up in a collective folly: the local police and the EUFOR troops separate ferocious groups of fans. Right in the middle of the hail of stones a question my Mostarian friend Svjetlana asked me after my first trip to her city, more than three years ago, comes to my mind. I have never stopped thinking about it.

She asked me what I felt the first time I set foot in Mostar: “seeing all those buildings in ruin, didn’t you feel uncomfortable walking through the streets and seeing the people who destroyed the city?”.

The city once called “the Montmartre of the Balkans” doesn’t exist anymore. When its dwellers stopped killing each other, nothing was left of the “pure and naive” Mostar my friend Svjetlana remembers. The most beautiful city of formerJugoslavia has turned into two ugly villages. Under the shadow of newly built churches and mosques, nationalism is going out of control like before the war. Mostar is today a time-bomb.

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Nenad's challenge Nenad is a 45-year-old former Velez football champion and an atheist of Muslim descent who has never kept a Koran in his hands. “Mostar is the city of Serbs, Croatians and Muslims; it never has been and never will belong only to one or the other. That is how I am bringing my children up” Nenad tells me.

In this way he is not only bringing up his children, but also an “army” of kids from 8 up to 18 years old. After the war, he set up the Velez School of soccer for all the kids of the town. A patch of ground, snatched from the old barracks destroyed by grenades, became the school pitch and a dirty run-down block the changing rooms. The ground is stony and bare and the goals have no nets but running on that pitch is the dream for most of the kids living in East Mostar.

In the Velez football school nationality does not count and all discrimination is banned. All the boys wear a white shirt and red shorts. Since the opening, at least 800 boys have passed through the football school although only three of them came from the other side of the Boulevard, but Nenad sees it as a beginning. Sometimes some boys come from the West side to talk to Nenad and tell him they would like to join Velez, but their parents are against it.

They fear they could have problems with their peers.

Nenad manages these situations talking to the parents, trying to convince them to bring their children to his side of the Boulevard every day. Most of the time Nenad succeeds in his aim, but then the boys quit anyway because of the persecution of their peers.

The only place and time where kids from East and West Mostar are together is during the soccer Summer School, in August. This happens because it is sponsored by a Danish non-profit organization that has brought the same event to several Balkan countries. Nenad works hard on it every year but until the very day of the opening, he never

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knows if he'll make it.

During the first of the three days of the summer school the kids train on the Velez field. It is in a very bad condition but it gets “dressed up” to make the kids happy. Nenad gives red caps and white t-shirts bearing the words “Sport for fun” to everybody and all nationalist symbols, or even the difference between richer and poorer ones, disappear.

The second day of training is in the city stadium, now decorated in red and white blocks, like the Croatian flag.

Some of the kids from the East have never seen such a beautiful field and concrete terraces before. They look around as if they were on the moon. Parents stand around the field, separated in different groups.

During the third day Nenad takes all the kids to the Old Town. They all follow him as a magic Piper. Along the streets of the town he makes them laugh and enjoys being with them. They feel it. Several children from the West have never been to the Old Town before, never crossed the boulevard and never seen the 'new' Old Bridge. Nenad asks the divers to make a show for them jumping from the top of the bridge, 30 mt high. The kids shout and clap like

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crazy.

Nenad doesn’t know if he will be able to organize the Summer School the following year. The municipality authorizes it to show that it follows the guidelines of the Dayton peace agreement, which imposes a re-united town for all its nationalities. Starting from the beginning of 2007, the EU High Commissioner for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mr Schwartz-Schilling, will be leaving his task and his office will be closed. There won’t be any influence on Mostar’s municipality anymore and Bosnia Herzegovina will have to stand on its own legs. The risk is that nationalism could run out of control. “Years of work with the kids could be erased”, Nenad says. It will be a tough year.

Nenad and the war During the main feast of the Muslim tradition, the Bajram Ramadan, Nenad takes his sons to the “harems”, the cemeteries. 45 of Nenad’s family died during the war, and have been buried in 6 different cemeteries spread all over town. Twelve of them were children aging from 2 up to 12 years old. It takes more than six hours to visit all the

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relatives. Hundreds of people walk silently in the forest of graves, praying and weeping without any noise. Nenad and his sons don’t speak. They walk from one grave to the other and stand for a while in silence. Nenad doesn’t like to talk about the war with his children, he never does. But he does do it drinking beers with his friends, at “Marshall Tito’s”.

Nenad didn't leave the city when the war broke out in 1992. He was 30 years old, had a brilliant career as a Velez footballer, two degrees, one in economics and one in education and his third child on the way.

When the Croatians arrived and wanted to snatch Mostar from Bosnia-Erzegovina and give it to Croatia, he joined the Bosnian troops holed up in the alleyways of the old city, like mice in traps. The odd photographs, a few letters, some clothes and a meal card from UNPROFOR is all that Nenad’s wife managed to save from the clean sweep he made when the war was over. Not all Nenad’s friends imitated him. Some of them had turned their backs and crossed the Boulevard, saying they were following the call of their blood. “What blood!? - Nenad always says - all the people of Mostar had mixed blood!” This is why, at first, no one thought the war would come to Mostar. There were dozens of jokes about it.

“The war? Balkan Love Games, we used to say! The divisions: who fights whom?” Nenad is drinking with his old friends; he is smoking and they all compete for the most incredible anecdote. This is Nenad’s show piece: “One day we asked the Serbs camped on the hills to bomb the Croatians because we did not have enough ammunition.

We ordered 50 grenades and we weren’t going to pay for one more or one less. The Serbs started shooting and we counted: 48…49…50…51…52…53.... We immediately called the Serb and told him to stop. They’re on me! – he replied, insulting us because we hadn’t recognized him. He was a friend. We had been soldiers together in the Yugoslav army.”

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Nenad and his work At 7 am every morning, Nenad goes to work, a stone’s throw from the “new Old Bridge” and his own home.

Nenad is co-director of the tourist office. Co-director because in every Mostarian institution, wherever there is a Bosnian there has to be a Croatian equivalent. Behind Nenad’s back, hanging on the wall, there is a big Velez pennant, while on his colleague’s desk there is the calendar of the Zrinjski football club.

They never see things in the same way. When delegations come from abroad they compete to catch their attention.

The Croatian co-director suggests visits to the catholic sanctuary of Medjugorie, nearby Mostar, or the city Dome, a concrete block with a 96 mt. bell tower too high for the city laws. Nenad takes them to the Old Town and organizes shows with the divers jumping from the Old Bridge, “for the destruction of which Croats never asked forgiveness”- he always adds. According to what the codirectors say, history has at least two faces.

There is a slanderous campaign lead by the media of the western side that seeks to destroy the symbols of old Mostar, accusing divers and the shopkeepers on the Old

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Bridge of financing the jihad and frightening the tourists away. Nenad's reply on the radio or on the newspaper

never comes late. He assures that this is not true and often, even “patrols” the shops to make sure the shopkeepers do not take advantage of tourists. This is all creating a lot of tension amongst the community of old Mostarians and many mornings are spent at Marshall Tito’s bar discussing the issue. Several times Nenad attacks nationalists of both sides: the Croats because they are destroying the legendary symbols of Mostar, the Muslims because they are squandering the economic resources building mosques and minarets all over the East section. It is like being caught in crossfire.

What can a man do, Nenad asks me, when he is attacked every day, when he has to do with people who want to cancel him and the world he belongs to from the face of the earth? He does not want to say it, but seems sure that what happened in 1993 could be repeated.

I lower my eyes and read the plaque at the foot of the bridge: “Do not forget 1993”. Who will ever forget?

Nenad and his family Nenad’s wife works in a bank and they have three children: the youngest is 11. Miro has long hair down to his waist, bracelets and necklaces and wants to be a rock star when he grows up. Amela, an 18-year-old girl who is about to go

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to university; Hasan, 16 years old, is a carbon copy of his father and the captain of the Velez cadets, the team of “war children” that Nenad trains. Hasan has even had the design that is common to Nenad’s generation tattooed on his arm: the Mostar bridge wrapped in a dragon, an indelible mark of great love for the city.

Something is bound to separate them. Nenad will never leave Mostar and Hasan is dreaming of moving to Germany. There is no future for him in this town and day after day his life is getting more and more difficult. Since he is the captain of the Velez cadet team he is constantly in danger.

Once 25 boys from the Croatian side attacked him with

sticks and weapons while he was close to his Gymnasium.

Hasan succeeded in calling his father who immediately phoned the police station. They told him they could check in two hours time. Nenad in his shorts ran to the spot with a pistol in his hand threatening the boys to kill them if they would do something bad to his son.

How can Nenad blame his son if he wants to leave? Hasan

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is under his peers’ crossfire every day: in the courtyard of the school or in the streets when he gets too close to the West side. What can he do? “It is better to be good Mostarian abroad, than being turned into bad Mostarian at home” Nenad tells me.

Nenad, the “war children” and their parents Every afternoon, Nenad closes the Tourist Office, leaps onto his bicycle and races to the pitch. Nenad is an idol to his boys, a champion, one whose photograph is in the big red Velez book. They follow him like a maestro and fear him like a strict father. This does not please some of the parents who cannot tolerate his outbursts on the pitch and his meddling in things that are not his business, such as the school or the relationships with their children. The father of Adnan, a slight midfielder with feet of gold, torments Nenad because his son, a major talent of the previous year, is often on the bench now. Nenad has explained to him that by rationing the official shirt he is forcing him to study harder. The father does not seem to care. He says that Adnan’s head is good for heading the ball and not for going to university, which anyway they could not afford. The whole large family lives in a refugee

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camp. When Nenad goes to collect the boy for an away game, he waits for him at the roadside to keep him away from his “home”. At the end of the lane you see his father seated at a small table covered with beer empties, and his mother hanging out clothes on the lawn. She takes in washing to keep the family.

Nenad has the opposite problem with the father of Isa, a full back with a fast stride and a sweet little face. Isa is very intelligent and learns quickly but an eruption of teenage acne has brought some bad marks in maths. Nenad knows the reason every time he fails to see Isa at training.

He jumps into his black jeep and races to Isa’s family home to get him. He does not know how to make his father understand that there is nothing better than time on the bench to encourage him to make more effort. The official shirt is a reward and those who do not study, do not play.

The parents of the “war children” do not always tolerate his “style”. They think he should only concern himself with patterns and play but Nenad is more interested in shaping men than training footballers.

His fixed aim is to see them united as brothers and this is why the boys must not miss training: “no unity, no team”.

Sometimes, he gathers them around his jeep and plays songs that speak of brotherhood and heroism at full volume.

“You must learn to trust one another. I don’t have to remind you what happened here when friends started turning their backs on each other!”

The “War children’s” idea of unity is the one they learned at the Mostar high school, the institution that the city authorities consider an example of “re-found unity”. Hasan, and some of his team-mates study there. They cross the threshold of the school, a large old-rose coloured, AustroHungarian building riddled with holes by the machine-gun fire, and go straight into the left wing. Here they study Bosnian and the history of Sarajevo. Hasan shows me that

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on the right wing of the corridor the West Mostar study Croatian and the history of Zagreb. “Our teachers explain us that the Bridge was destroyed; their’s, that it collapsed!”

The first institution of “re-found unity” is actually a school of “apartheid”.

School, homework and training occupy most of the boys’ daytime. In the free hours, Hasan likes to sleep, while his team-mates like to go to Internet points. Isa and Dino, full back and striker, shoot virtual guns in computer games that simulate the last Bosnian war. They can even choose Sarajevo, Tuzla or Mostar. Mirzad surfs the net to find pictures of Velez or to chat with faraway supporters. He has founded the “Red Army Youth”, the club of young Velez hooligans. Sometimes Mirzad doesn’t go to training to make the flags or to try the slogans with his friends and Nenad gets mad at him. “Do you want to be a player or to carry flags?” Nenad shouted once, in the middle of the field. Love for Velez is turning Mirzad into an extremist, a stupid hooligan, which is not Nenad’s purpose when he teaches the boys the Velez’ motto “Mostar in my heart, Velez until the grave”.

Once in downtown Nenad met Mirzad who was completely drunk. He was with the Red Army Youth.

Nenad took him home to talk to his parents.

From time to time a representative football team of Mostar, a mixed team with some boys from Zrinjski and others from Velez, go to Italy, Norway, Germany to play in “Peace tournaments”. Nenad likes the idea to send the kids far from Mostar, from the tension and the ruins of the war. But sometimes for the boys it is even worse.

In Italy, for example, a journalist interviewed the young players. She sat in front of them asking who was Croat and who was Muslim and started making questions about who lost somebody in the war, what they would do if a Serb would kill them, and so on. Not one word about soccer.

I showed Nenad the tape of the interview. He was really angry: “We send the kids abroad to meet friends and to

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have fun and that stupid journalist is so cruel with them!”

With an interview like this all Nenad's long work with the boys can be wasted in an hour.

“Mostar in my heart, Velez to my grave!”

The Velez Futbal Klub headquarters has always been in Marshall Tito St. Miro, the elderly secretary-factotum, sits at the desk in the office; on the peeling walls around him are the Velez pennants and yellowing photographs of past champions. Miro’s screensaver on his mobile phone is a portrait of Tito and he wears a red star on his chest. Nenad likes to make fun of his “fellows” and the uncertain air they have whenever they have to express an opinion.

Although we are alone in the room, Miro speaks in a low voice about “Marshall Tito”. “When I ended up in hospital in Fiume as a refugee after the last war, they admitted me to the same hospital where he was a patient. What an honour!” Communism yes, Communism no; both agree that Mostar was the best place in the world to live in then “…and if I call it the Montmartre of the Balkans, you know what I mean!” says Nenad and “Velez was decisive in

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making us all feel united and equal”.

During Tito’s years just one team represented Mostar,

Futbol Klub Velez. When Yugoslavia ceased to exist, West Mostar re-formed the Croatian Sport Klub Zrinjski. Velez is no longer the home team of the city stadium, Bijeli Brieg, which the people of Mostar built with their hands for the “red” Velez at the end of WWII. During the last war, the whole Western section of the city was conquered by the Croatians and the stadium, which lies in the centre of that area, was used as a concentration camp for the Muslims.

Since then, Velez has not been able to play there.

There is a never ending tug-of-war between the municipality and the Velez management. Letters, meetings, public discussions are bringing to nothing.

Nenad and the “grown ups'” football derby Nenad sees the city’s football derby as a snapshot of the ruin into which the city has fallen. The football derby with Velez and Zrjniski is more a civil war than a football match.

Nenad is always nervous and worried during the days that precede the event. He often goes to the Velez office to check if everything is ok: if the bus company has accepted to take them to the stadium or how many soldiers and policemen will be spread around town. Newspapers dedicate a lot of pages to the event and journalists come to his office for news. Nenad has nothing to do with the

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main team, but many players come from his school and he feels he has some responsibilities. When the Zrinjski

management come to the office to discuss the details, the conversation gets hot: the Velez management asks the guests to patrol their hooligans and forbid racist slogans and violent behaviours.

Moments after the Velez director meets the president of the Red Army - Velez’ fans, and asks him the same thing.

Anything can compromise the battle to give back to Velez the right to play home matches in the city stadium.

The day of the match Nenad leaves his brand new black jeep at home and walks to the Velez office, meets the team and goes with them to the city Stadium, where they play as guests. Anything could happen. Many times in the past the matches have been stopped because of violent actions.

Nenad and the football derby of the “war children” Nenad hopes to see a different derby when his boys play against their Zrinjski peers from the West side. Instead, every time the “war children” cross the Boulevard to play a match in the city stadium, Nenad is forced to escort them along with the elderly secretary Miro. They cannot start until the police arrive.

The last time they played without the police, 50 supporters jumped into the pitch to beat the Velez players. Nobody did anything and the frightened 12 years old kids locked themselves into the dressing room until the police came

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and took control of the situation. One of the parents was filming the scene and that's why Nenad always gets someone to bring a camera to the matches.

On the terraces there are always Zrinjski supporters shouting racist slogans against Muslims or threatening to beat them and they often keep their promises.

Nenad’s players are intimidated by the stadium and the reception, and nearly always lose the match.

The next day it is time to take stock in the changing room of the Velez football school. The boys remain in silence around Nenad who looks at them one by one. The big room is dilapidated; the floor is dirty, the benches are broken and the walls are peeling and defaced. Nenad sets aside patterns and tactics and firmly addresses what he believes is the problem: his “war children” are unable to act like a proper team. They do not help their team mates and they do not know how to “give their lives for others” on the pitch. In the dressing room he heard only “You have done…”, “You have failed…”. Nobody said “We…” The boys listen. Nenad is harsh. He is like a man with no time to lose. He is clearly not thinking about the match, but the crossroads that he and his city find themselves at.

I am on Nenad's side “It is not easy to remember; it is impossible to forget”.

Every evening Nenad runs alone around the deserted Velez ground. All around are fields and mountains: a green spot far from the bell towers and mosques that makes the air breathable at last. He runs to switch his brain off. I can picture him bombarded by millions of fragments of life lived as he quickens his pace so as to feel only the fatigue.

I leave with the sensation that we are having similar conflicts. All over the world, there is someone denying others the right to exist. I hope, one day, to see this film of mine as the genesis of a victorious resistance and not the twilight of a great civilization.

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DIRECTOR'S NOTES MOSTAR UNITED starts where I put the word end to my previous film, dated 2004, “Private fragments of Bosnia”.

“Private fragments of Bosnia” first originated because I wanted to convince my best friend Svjetlana to return to Mostar after she had fled it in 1992 because of the war. I succeeded in my aim, but her reaction forced me to undertake a new research. She said her pure and naïve Mostar had died and what was left were its killers with their minarets and churches. The “Montmartre of the Balkans” was not there anymore.

She was wrong. I found the last survivors of that civilization based on unity and brotherhood. They are where they were all their life, around the soccer team that made them feel united and brothers after the II World War, in the Velez Football Club.

They fight to make Mostar once again the “town of Croats, Serbs and Muslims”, to erase the divisions.

Nenad is “the hero” who has the strength to put himself against those who want to vanquish his people from the face of the earth and kick out of Mostar the unwelcome ethnical memberships.

This battle could get even worse in 2007. The EU High Commissioner for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mr SchwartzSchilling, will leave his task and his office will be closed.

This is a very important turning point for Bosnia Herzegovina. During these last 10 years the EU forces patrolled the application of the Dayton peace agreements.

People were forced to live together but in no way has the peaceful “living together” of the past been achieved. Now Bosnia Herzegovina is asked to stay on its feet, but there are no jobs for people and nationalisms are getting once again stronger and stronger. Exactly like before the ’92-’95 war.

MOSTAR UNITED will show Mostar during this transition.

Nenad, the main character, will face the change. "Finally there won’t be foreigners telling us Mostarians how to rule

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the country anymore…but poor us!”, says Nenad. Is Bosnia Herzegovina ready to stand without help? We’ll see it through Nenad’s everyday life. I have total access to his family, work and the Velez environment.

I feel caught up in Nenad’s battle. I am fascinated by people who work day in day out, in their own small way, for social justice. I believe it is the only possible way to improve the world. The only way out is to infect as many young people as possible with the germ of “equality”. There is no alternative in this global world, unless we want to turn the planet into a time bomb.

DRAMATIC STRUCTURE MOSTAR UNITED follows Nenad and his challenge.

He is a man of action. He has goals, the most important of which are to collect as many nationalities as possible on his soccer field, to organize a three day soccer school in summer where all the kids of both sides play together and create relationships among them. The film follows the pursuing of his goals and when the present meets the past - family visits to war cemeteries, traditional celebrations which witness the joyful past - the archives (personal, old super8, footage from Sarajevo's film library…) will provide fragments of the visual background. Fifteen years ago history pounced on Nenad and changed his life. Still today he can’t get rid of it.

The film covers the span of a year, following the football season: this is Nenad’s mental pattern and will be that of my film. A link is established between the adult football derby and that of his boys. These events provide expectations, a narrative device and compare the present with a hypothesis for the future.

VISUAL APPROACH The camera of MOSTAR UNITED identifies with the reality.

Aware of situations in which there is conflict between the protagonists and the surrounding environment, it waits for events to happen, without conditioning them, listening to the

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All photos by Fulvia Troja

central characters when they feel the need to explain the present or show the past through what they have conserved.

Archives are used like fragments of the past, lyrical excerpts which can visualize what’s going on in Nenad’s mind. They are more emotional than narrative.

The director of photography is Brand Ferro, one of the leading Macedonian cinematographers.

Brand is a good friend of mine and Nenads. I like his light shots, the natural way he composes the scene with long sequences planes that never lose the focus of action. We are part of the lives of the people whose story we are telling and we want to bear this in mind.

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APPENDIX LIST OF PRIMARY PERSONNEL DIRECTOR Claudia Tosi SUBJECT Claudia Tosi SCRIPTWRITER Claudia Tosi CAMERA Brand Ferro (Macedonia) SOUND to be defined (from Bosnia-Herzegovina) ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Nenad Orucevic (Bosnia-Herzegovina) LINE PRODUCERS Petra Seliskar (Slovenija) EDITOR to be defined EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Edoardo Fracchia, Stefano Tealdi a Stefilm (Italy) / Petra Pan Film (Slovenija) / Movimenta (Italy) coproduction

CV DIRECTOR CLAUDIA TOSI July 18, 1970, Modena, Italy 1989-90 Attended the University of Bologna, as a Philosophy major.

1993 - Earned Technical Diploma in Photography-Cinema-Television from the Istituto Nazareno, Carpi, Province of Modena. Program funded by the EEC. MAJOR FILMOGRAPHY 1997-2006 Documentary film-maker: - De siluro, 24' - Sex, film short, 3' - Jean-Yves Ginoux dance performance for I TEATRI di R.E., 90' - L'Apocalisse di Giovanni, with Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and CSI, 90' - Hurtigruten, documentary on Norwegian postal boat (assistant director) - Una storia tutta d'oro, documentary on Alberto Tomba, 50' and 90' - Fire Fighters in Europe, pilot episode for TV series, 24' - La mia vita a luci rosse, documentary on Ilona Staller, 50' - Il balsamico della tradizione secolare, 12' - Private fragments of Bosnia, 52' Best Documentary Genova film Festival 2004, Selected IDFA 2004, Reflecting Images, Selected “Festival dei Popoli”, Firenze 2004 and broadcasted TSI (Suisse) and YLE (Finland) - Building the Winter Games, 3x46' Stefilm International for Discovery Europe - A casa di Helen, 20' selected at Medfilm Festival Rome 2006 Stefilm via Berthollet 44 - 10125 Torino (Italy) - tel +39 011 6680017 - fax +39 011 6680003 - www.stefilm.it - info@stefilm.it

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“Mostar united” by Claudia Tosi, all rights reserved Stefilm © 2006

CV DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BRAND FERRO 1968, Skopje (Macedonia) BIOGRAPHY A cinematographer, educated in Skopje and Belgrade.

He began his film activities as an amateur behind the camera in "Courtyard", "Unusual Day", "One Way Ticket" and "Water" and received the highest much recognition at domestic amateur film festivals.

Later on he worked as a cinematographer of several video achievements including: "Subway" (1993), a musical underground series, awarded “the Gold Antenna" at the festival in Bulgaria, "After" (1994), a piece of video art, which won an award from the Council of Europe at the Festival in Locarno, "N.E.P." (1995), a full length experimental - documentary film was in the official selection of the London Film Festival in 1995.

He was working as a cinematographer on many documentary films for A1 private Macedonian television as well as short films and TV series for many independent film productions.

The last two documentaries are: - Turkish tea, 6x30', Petra Pan Film Production - Grandmothers of Revolution, full length documentary, Petra Pan Film Production, RTV Slovenia & Dream Factory-Macedonia co-production, selected at IDFA Competition 2006 LANGUAGES Macedonian (mother language), Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovenian, Russian, English.

CV EXECUTIVE PRODUCER EDOARDO FRACCHIA Born in August 1953, Turin - Italy, where he graduated in Medicine in 1979.

Everyday contacts with all kinds of human experiences led his interest towards the abstract and representation. The theatre stage was a natural outlet. He acted with the theatrical company 'Teatro di Maggio' in the plays 'W l'Italia' by Dacia Maraini and in 'The bed bug' by Vladimir Majakovskij. In 1980 he founded 'Diavolo Zoppo' a service company for live theatre and musicals. In 1983 he worked as a consultant to the director on four documentaries by Daniele Segre for RAI UNO on drug addiction.

In 1984, together Elena Filippini and Stefano Tealdi, he founded Stefilm.

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“Mostar united” by Claudia Tosi, all rights reserved Stefilm © 2006

Since 1988 he wrote several treatments for documentaries shot in Italy and around the world following them up as line-producer and/or co-director. All the films were aimed at the incternational market. He has also worked in writing voice off texts for documentaries. As a producer he followed most of Stefilm's productions "on the field" co-ordinating the work and maintaining relationships with the local and national institutions involved. He has also fund-raised with these same institutions.

In 2002 he followed the European Seminar "Documentary and archives" in Bordeaux to consolidate the experience in researching and managing archive material.

Currently he is also the director of Stefilm Development Campus, a structure dedicated to the development of proposals with young talents.

MAJOR FILMOGRAPHY - Piemonte Stories, 12 documentary shorts, 2006, Italy, Finland, Switzerland - My Three Peaks, 40', documentary, 2005, Italy, France, Austria - Gelato: An Endless Passion, 52', documentary, 2005, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Finland, Austria - Citizen Berlusconi, 52', documentary, 2003, USA, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Swede, Belgium, Holland - On the Steps of Noto, 92', documentary, 2003, Italy, Germany - Rice Girls, 52', documentary, 2003, Italy, Finland, Suisse - Porto Marghera, Venice, the story of a lethal deception, author 52', documentary, 2002, Italy, Suisse, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain - Song on a Narrow Path, author 52', documentary, 2001, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Soros Foundation - Eutopia! series, documentary, 2000, UK, Italy - Tougher than the Rest, author, co-director 57', documentary, 1999, Italy, Germany, Denmark - The Song of Bosa, 88', super16, documentary, 1998, Denmark, Italy, Germany

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“Mostar united” by Claudia Tosi, all rights reserved Stefilm © 2006

DISTRIBUTION/MARKETING STRATEGY The distribution strategy involves both the commercial and non-commercial distribution.

1. Commercial distribution.

The proposal was presented at the 2004 Documentary in Europe pitching forum at its initial stage of development. It collected interest from several broadcasters that are now attending the full treatment. In this development period we aimed at involving the local institutions, broadcasters and co-producers. This has been achieved with the commitment of the Bosnian TV (BiH) which has assured a financial involvment (20.000€) and the distribution of the film in the aerea, with various local institutions which have assured us access and with Petra Pan Films, an independent producer from Macedonia which will open the project up to the Eastern European market. They will also be commiting to the project with talent (the DOP) and production services.

The Europan broadcasters that have confirmed their interest are ZDF/Arte, Arte France, Lichtpunt (is offcially in) and YLE. With the full treatment we will also be approaching the Sundance Channel in the US, TSI and NRK. We are sure these channels will allow us to raise a good part of the funds and also give the film a broad diffusion. The rest of the monies will be coming from non-commercial film funds (ITVS, Sundance Documentary Fund, etc.) and institutions, both at a local level and at the international level. We will of course be pitching the project both at the MIPCOM (running now) and at the coming IDFA. Accent Films in Switzerland is interested in the international distribution of the film and we will be applying for the MEDIA TV Distribution fund (20% of the production budget) once we have the commitment of the broadcasters.

2. Non commercial distributors Different institutions and foundations in Europe and in Italy should be interested in financially supporting the film and in the non-commercial distribution. Stefilm has already worked with the Soros Foundation (today Sundance Documentary Fund), SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), Danish Film Institute, ABP in Germany, the DGVIII directorate for development, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, human rights organizations and others. In Italy the local Institutions like Provinciaa di Modena will also take part in financing and will open other links with Italian Pubblic Associations.

With MOSTAR UNITED it will also be possible to organize special events around Europe where the film will be presented. These presentations will possibly trigger the homevideo distribution of the film.

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“Mostar united” by Claudia Tosi, all rights reserved Stefilm © 2006

PRODUCER'S NOTE Stefilm has been developing and successfully producing documentaries for 15 years now. In these years we have concentrated more and more on Italian issues as we believe that it's important for the filmmaker and production team to be close to the reality told in the documentary. This made it difficult for us to decide on developing the proposal presented by Claudia Tosi. Even though we could already see the sparkle of determination in her eyes we did not immediately and positively reply to her request. Only after having seen her previous film (a very personal film shot in Bosnia a couple of months earlier) and speaking to a few professionals in Bosnia (Igor Bradevic, now director of the One World Human Rights Film Festival in the Czech Republic and Miro Purivetra and Izeta Gradevic both Bosnian and directors of the Sarajevo Film Festival) did we understand how much Claudia has managed to grasp the reality of Mostar and the atmosphere of the region. She did the rest to convince us with her perseverance, dedication and passion. The development started approx. two years ago with our investment and the support of the MEDIA program of the European Union. Since then Claudia has been on numerous research trips getting deeper into the Mostarian reality, with which she was already very much acquainted, but also building up a strong relation with different people in the town. These trips allowed her to find the strongest characters for her film. The ones that more than others will be able to guide the viewer into the different aspects of the harsh reality. One of the trips was also dedicated to filming the locations and the characters, so as to understand the visual potential of the story, the reaction of the characters and the people and the difficulties which will have to be faced during the shooting of the film. In July 2004 the proposal was selected and pitched at the “Documentary in Europe” Pitching Forum in Bardonecchia (Italy) organized by the European Documentary Network. Even though the development had just started the pitch went very well collecting the interest of several commissioning editors.

Claudia Tosi will be working with a production team which has a consolidated experience and in part comes from the Balkan region. This will allow the crew to collect the different nuances of the situation as well as react effectively. Claudia herself, even though a young filmmaker, is an upcoming talent in Italy and has a rich professional experience working in many different audiovisual fields (advertising, fiction and institutional work).

Her previous documentary work - Private Fragments of Bosnia - was awarded best documentary at the Genova Film Festival 2004, was in competition at the 2004 Festival dei Popoli (Firenze) and at the IDFA 2004 “Reflecting Images” in Amsterdam. The only Italian film selected.

The recent coproduction agreement with Petra Pan Film (Slovenija) boosts the strenght of the project opening new possibilities with International Funds and the eastern TV market.

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“Mostar united” by Claudia Tosi, all rights reserved Stefilm © 2006

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Autumn-Winter 2006: fundraising and pre-production period Winter-Spring-Summer 2007: shooting (4-5 weeks of shooting in different periods) End 2007-Beginning 2008: delivery of the film

THE CITY OF MOSTAR The city of Mostar, prior the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, was considered the Montmartre of the Balkans. A beautiful town at the foot of the hills in the East of ex-Jugoslavia, 100 kms from the sea. The city was a stranger to ethnic, religious and national divisions; it was the city in Yugoslavia with the most mixed marriages. Indeed Mostar was the symbol of East-meetsWest. But during the war, the Old City was nearly razed to the ground; 90% of the Old City's population was either massacred or deported; the famed Ottoman bridge, the Stari Most, was destroyed by a Croatian tank after a two-day siege. In one fell swoop, one of the world's most secular and cosmopolitan civilizations was almost completely wiped out.

War broke out in 1992. The Serbs surrounded the city, but were quickly ousted. Months later, in 1993, the second wave of conflict began, the bloody fratricide between Croats and Muslims. According to native Mostarians, the tragedy was sparked by the thousands of farmers who converged upon Mostar in the 1980s in search of work. By refusing to give up their traditions of national and religious identity, they changed the face of the city almost overnight. The war was bitter and fierce with thousands killed in a door to door battle.

Snipers along the streets and tank shellings destroyed the town phisycally and the survivors spiritually. Muslims were murdered or deported to concentration camps in the name of ethnic cleansing.

The city was split in half. Native Mostarians dug into the Old City to defend it. And while the Old City was being destroyed, people on the “Croatian” side of town flocked to cafés and bars to sip coffee or celebrate on-target mortar shots. A peace treaty was signed in Dayton (U.S.A.) on November 21, 1995, which stipulated the reunification of Mostar.

While the more recent Mostar inhabitants still tend to harbor a strong sense of division, the “old Mostarians” refuse to adopt such an outlook, completely foreign to their way of thinking, and continue to pass onto their children a vision of life without barriers. But growing up in such a divided context does not help young people to avoid the vortex of hatred generated by the macabre intimacy foisted upon the city, where today victims and perpetrators walk the same streets, and the ubiquitous graffiti message “never forget” is a double-edged sword.

Mostar's population has since been cut in half, with approximately 60,000 inhabitants remaining. Many who were not killed in the war sought refuge abroad, especially in the Scandinavian countries (at least 35,000), Canada and the United States. Today there are 28

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“Mostar united” by Claudia Tosi, all rights reserved Stefilm © 2006

more native Mostarians living in Oslo than in Mostar itself. For these exiles the return home, even if only for a visit, is always a shock. The recent proliferation of crosses, minarets, mosques and churches is making the city unrecognizable. The streets have new names, based on “political” logic touted on both the East and West sides.

Levels of unemployment are disastrously high, corruption runs rampant, and the general state of precariousness makes optimism an impossible luxury. This scenario of economical disaster is terribly similar to the one that served to fuel ethnic and national hatred, which gave start to the war in 1992. In addition to this, unfair distribution of areas of influence and power raise tension between Croats and Moslems in Herzegovina; Moslems and Serbs in central Bosnia; while in northern Bosnia, it's everybody against everybody else.

Seventy-five per cent of economic aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina is spent on maintaining the country's palaeolithic bureaucracy afloat, while the remaining 25% ends up financing the construction of places of worship rather than the restoration of factories. In this context, it's easy to see how organized crime has been able to step in with its control of drug traffic and the arms business, two driving forces of the local economy. It is thought that an enormous quantity of arms still circulates in Bosnia-Herzegovina, ready to re-ignite the conflict at any time. In recent years 16 million bullets, 180,000 hand grenades, 43,000 rifles and pistols, 3,500 mines and 40,000 kilograms of explosives have been confiscated. Beginning in 2005 European EUFOR replaced NATO forces here, with the delicate task of keeping an utterly tenuous, fragile peace. Seven thousand new troops arrived, with headquarters at Sarajevo; a field division is located in Mostar. Despite the “no-war” situation declared a decade ago at Dayton, a truly peaceful solution to the seething conflict remains a far reach.

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