‘I am sorry I did not get the chance to ask Caco: ‘Why did you do it, Caco, my son? Why did you do it to the man who loved you? Why did you do it to the man who neither wanted nor could hurt you”, said Momčilo Šalipur, the father of killed Predrag, who was killed. Author: Edvin Kanka […]

Politicians still largely (ab)use the word ”peace”, and even more frequently the word ”war” in the public space on a daily basis. Both of these words appear in the media as part of the coverage of topics related to victims of war, disabled war veterans, reports on persons who were killed or wounded by a mine in the remaining mine […]

The past defines the present that we live in Our country is trapped, we have no understanding of democracy, our society is poisoned, our educational system is degraded, our legal system is inefficient, our minorities are discriminated, and the media is under constant attack. As I sit and read the news about events which occupy the public’s attention, I can’t […]

Photo: Jasmina Spasić The citizens of Serbia associate October, the tenth month of the year, with the anniversary of the liberation of their capital in WWII. The liberation of Belgrade, on October 20th 1944 ended the 1287-day-long German occupation of the capital of Yugoslavia, fought for by units of the National Liberation Army (the Yugoslav Partisans) and the Red Army. […]

As a participant of the "Dealing with the Past" program, within the Sarajevo Film Festival, I had the honor of being part of a group that witnessed past events through incredible and raw cinematography. I liked how past events and experiences were expressed in quite an exhilarating and beautiful manner because for us, the younger generations, it is a perfect […]

Dealing with the past is one of the reasons why one may create a work of art. People use art to deal with what happened to them and as a result, many create movies, write books, music, TV series and plays.  The fact that these forms of art resulted from the human need for expression gives a complete dimension of […]

How do you deal with something you did not do or had any influence on? Why discuss topics that don’t bother you? Why watch movies set in the problematic past? I got questions like these while going to the Dealing with the Past (DwP) Program, which was part of this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival. The Sarajevo Film Festival can’t be […]

A warm August afternoon in the middle of the 25th Sarajevo Film Festival, at a conference room without daylight, filled with chairs similar to school benches and a group of youth from the region participating in the Dealing with the Past Programme [L1]. I thought that there would be no discussion, because there was the SFF and socialising on the […]

”I had a dream about my Nermin…”, says a Srebrenica mother, Saliha Osmanović, while we are sitting in her dead children’s room, which has not changed a bit.   The village Dobrak is located an hour’s drive away from Srebrenica and the trip to the village takes quite some time. The car is crawling on worn roads, passing through green […]

It’s Saturday evening, April 23rd 2016 at the A3 café-club in Knin, and young people are pouring in. The concert of the band Darkwood from Sinj is about to begin. I came to Knin on some other day intentionally to avoid the anniversary of Oluja. We are sitting with the 48-year-old local the late Dragan Babić, who regularly comes to […]

On the 28th of June 2018, at the Government’s proposal, the Serbian National Assembly symbolically issued the “Law on War Memorials”. This Law foresees legal provisions governing memorialization of the Republic of Serbia’s war history, starting from the First Balkan War to the last conflict in Kosovo (1912-1999). Over the past 40 years, state narratives have standardized three laws on […]

Photo credit: YIHR What exactly is the difference between past, present, and future? Most of us would perhaps argue that the answer to that question is an obvious one – the time before the moment we are living in, be it one second or thousands of years ago, is the past; this moment, now, is the present; and whatever is […]