Besides Red Carpets, Sarajevo Film Festival Confronts Traumatic Past

Beside red carpets, movie screenings, panel discussions and glitzy parties, in its "Dealing With the Past" programme, the Sarajevo Film festival lets visitors learn about the past, reconciliation and how different societies deal with conflicts and their consequences. 

"For a few years, together with our partners, we've been organising a youth segment which, beside movie screenings, features panel discussions on different aspects of movies and on how to process traumas," Masa Markovic, SFF's "Dealing With the Past" programme manager, told BIRN.

This year, the programme will host a project called "In Youth Eyes", with 30 young people from seven Western Balkan countries. Most will be coming to Sarajevo to talk about difficult history for the first time. 

"The project emerged from a need to talk with the second generation, who at first always say that the wars were not theirs but their parents' generations. But when you scratch under the surface, you see that they are not aware of how much the traumas of previous generations have affected their lives," Markovic added. 

"In Youth Eyes" aims to bring that second generation together and help them face their realities. It is organised in collaboration with the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), forumZFD - Forum Civil Peace Service, and the USAID PRO-Future Project.

Learning the Processes of Reconciliation

Young Tuzla director Alen Simic. Photo: Screenshot from the movie 'B4'

Regional Youth Cooperation Office in the Western Balkans, RYCO, an intergovernmental organisation that aims to bring together young people from the region and help them to learn about processes of reconciliation through personal experience, has been hosting this project since 2019.

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