Introduction

In these unprecedented times, when it seems that the world we used to know will cease to exist in the future, truth-seeking and fact-checking are more important than ever. But the anxieties of the world we have left behind will trickle into the new order. If we have learnt anything over the past year, I daresay it is that our personal lives can be turned upside-down in a matter of moments.

The DEALING WITH THE PAST programme has had a clear mission since its start: to conduct honest dialogue about our region’s recent past as a prerequisite to resolving the problems that stem from the Yugoslav Wars, which still strain our societies. Over the last seven years, we have shared many gut-wrenching but inspiring stories from around the world. With technological challenges, climate crisis and war in Ukraine, one is currently wondering more about our shared future, than about our common past. While our minds are perplexed about the future, somehow, It feels like certain lessons from the past are valid today.

This year’s the Dealing with the Past programme will welcome authors renowned for their films about real life events that deeply touch our hearts and minds. At the same time, the programme will present some new voices, authors courageous enough not only to scratch the surface of the reality we are living, but to question the position of an individual whose lives are deeply affected by the traumas of the recent events. While we are accumulating new traumas, the old ones haven’t been processed, reflected, or healed.

The programme will open a cult film “Waltz with Bashir” by Ari Folman, the film that has changed perception what documentary film can be back in 2008. The film is based on director’s experiences as a young Israeli soldier in 1982 and through animation we explore the mysterious paths of our memory and experience, how trauma brings its own shield. It is a great pleasure to share with our audiences Ari’s latest film, the beautiful, thoughtprovoking, and now more than ever relevant “Where is Anne Frank”. In addition, we are bringing an author who is very close to Sarajevo, a master of cinema, Michael Winterbottom to present his latest film “Eleven Days in May” co-directed by Mohammad Sawaf. Michael and Mohammed in a

delicate, personal approach have presented the toil of the Gaza attack in 2021. As part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s masterclasses, it will be a great honor to hear Ari Folman and Michael Winterbottom discuss their work and with focus on the topics that deal with real life-events and traumas connected to them. As part of the programme that features films of the renowned filmmakers, we will be presenting a film of the Dutch filmmaker Mijke de Jong who in a very intimate way portrays a journey of Fatima and Zahra, refugees trying to reach Europe. In addition, the audience will have a chance to revisit destinies of Vukovar’s residents in 1991 and 2008 in Eduard Galić’s “Sixth Bus”. American director Joseph Pierson in his film “What’s This Country Called Now? presents us an inspiring story of Bosnian journalist Aida Čerkez during the Siege of Sarajevo.

The second part of the programme is led by a new generation of emerging filmmakers, such as Nataša Urban who in her winning film “Eclipse” uses solar eclipse in 1999 as a light motive for the collective trauma experience in Serbia in the aftermath of the wars in Yugoslavia. The selection also features a film of Bosnian filmmaker Alen Šimić “B4” who returns to his home, a place where his parents had been killed. “The Cutting” by Serbian director Davor Markinković, gives us the insight of the lives of people that have been displaced after the war and have been living in the camps their whole life.

The Dealing with the Past programme also is welcoming 30 young people from Western Balkans as part of the “In Youth Eyes” programme that offers series of panels, closed discussions and debates on peace activism and reconciliation practices. “In Youth Eyes” is organized in collaboration with Regional Youth Cooperation Office, Forum ZFD and Pro.budućnost.

Dealing with the Past programme is supported by Friederich Ebert Stiftung.

Maša Marković, Dealing with the Past Manager