Children of Sarajevo

Djeca

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Germany, France, Turkey

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Children of Sarajevo
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Synopsis

Synopsis

Rahima (23) and Nedim (14) are orphans of the Bosnian war. They live in Sarajevo, a transitional society that has lost its moral compass, also in the way it treats children of the people who were killed fighting for the freedom of their city. After crime-prone adolescent years, Rahima has found comfort in Islam and she hopes her brother will follow in her footsteps. Their life of bare survival becomes even more difficult after Nedim gets into a fistfight with the son of a local strongman and breaks his expensive mobile phone. This incident triggers a chain of events leading Rahima to the discovery that her brother leads a double life.

Rahima (23) and Nedim (14) are orphans of the Bosnian war. They live in Sarajevo, a transitional society that has lost its moral compass, also in the way it treats children of the people who were killed fighting for the freedom of their city. After crime-prone adolescent years, Rahima has found comfort in Islam and she hopes her brother will follow in her footsteps. Their life of bare survival becomes even more difficult after Nedim gets into a fistfight with the son of a local strongman and breaks his expensive mobile phone. This incident triggers a chain of events leading Rahima to the discovery that her brother leads a double life.

Selections

  • Feature Film Selection

Cast & Crew

  • Directed by: Aida Begić
  • Written by: Aida Begić
  • Produced by: Aida Begić
  • Cinematography: Erol Zubčević
  • Editing: Miralem Zubčević
  • Production Design: Sanda Popovac
  • Cast: Marija Pikić (Rahima), Ismir Gagula (Nedim)

Director's Statement

SNOW, my first feature film, was a story about a group of women whose male family members had been killed in war-time massacres in eastern Bosnia. It followed their struggle to survive in 1997, the immediate post-war period. While working on SNOW, we talked a lot about something we called the ‘Bosnian dream’. At that time, we had a dream and we believed in the reconstruction of our society. When I was contemplating what my second feature film could be about, I was trying to find out what kind of a society we live in today, what has changed since the time we worked on SNOW. I realised that we do not believe in the reconstruction of our society anymore and that we have replaced dreams with memories. I noticed that when my friends and I start to talk about the war, we suddenly become passionate and lively. Reflecting on how we remember the war and how we talk about it, I started to wonder whether it was the only period of our life when we had truly lived. I wonder if our life during the war was really better than our life today or if it just feels that way because the war is something that we have left behind. Were people really more humane in the most difficult period in the history of our city or did it just feel that way because we were all equally miserable? And what about those of us who have no recollection of what my generation refers to as “normal (pre-war) life”? What about those whose understanding of the world is based on “the time out of joint”?

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