Ahmed Imamović
The film deals with the tragedy of the women survivors of the Srebrenica genocide, or rather, the consequences of the horrors they experienced - it is about women whose sole purpose in life is to locate the bones of their loved ones and give them a decent burial. Fifteen years later, they still want just one simple thing - the truth. As a contrast, the film deals with trivialities of modern living, obsessed with different reality shows...
In the nineties the Yugoslavia Federation falls apart in bloody wars. Perpetual student Milan, a Serb from a patriarchal community and Kenan, a Muslim cellist, are a homosexual couple living in Sarajevo. Their lives, intimate and public, are shaken up by the aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose devastating consequences unfold in inter-ethnic hatred. Trapped in Sarajevo during the siege of the Serb forces, the lovers manage to flee to Milan's home village and there they take shelter, waiting for Milan's father, Ljubo, to find a way to the Netherlands. Witnessing the brutality of Serb forces and their hatred towards Muslims, Milan desperately improvises: he disguises Kenan as a woman and begins to present him as his wife, Milena, a secret discovered by Milan's best friend, Lunja. Milan is drafted into the army and the situation becomes almost unbearable for Kenan. His one companion, is Ranka, a waitress in a local café, a woman whose dark secrets terrify most of the villagers ...
10 minutes doesn't seem long to a Japanese tourist waiting for some photos in Rome, but a lot can happen in the same 10 minutes for a family in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.
This film deals with the atrocities of war as portrayed by a film student who spends some time working as a medic. One of the duties he performed was to carry amputated limbs to the cremation furnace. This is a film about the collective madness that engulfed Sarajevo. A one-armed boy is troubled because he can't make big, firm snowballs; a man who lost both legs demonstrates walking on his stumps... The film and the director's story help us understand the commotion and tumult that have occurred in the minds of Sarajevans.
This work is inspired by a truth of Jenny Holzer which says: „When something terrible happens people don't wake up“. This truth is questionable once the scenes from ruined Sarajevo are shown.
