Revealing Memories

The Balkans are often associated with wars, unstable politics and conflict—and still bear scars from past discord. Influenced by this, younger generations are forced to confront history and seek answers to unanswered questions. A main motif of our program is exploring memory in reflecting on complex topics and the related challenges. Memory plays a key role in shaping individual and collective narratives. Via archival footage and personal memories, we invite viewers to witness the complexities interpreted by promising young authors and how they confront the past and the issues of the present. (Samir Karahoda - DokuFest)

My Grandfather – A Desk For Each Pupil

Hena Krasniqi | Duration 6’

In the 90s, when the Serbian government forcibly removed students for opposing the curriculum, the director’s grandfather and other volunteers built new desks, ensuring education in Kosovo.

Hope Hotel Phantom

Bojan Stojcic

In November 1995, the leaders of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia & Serbia met in Dayton (Ohio) to broker a peace agreement that would end four violent years of war in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Negotiated at the Hope Hotel located on the grounds of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Dayton Agreement locked Bosnia & Herzegovina into a simulacra of democracy, through the proxy of a site that was a simulacra in itself: a military base on the other side of the world, an intimidation to the signing parties.

Rabbitland

Ana and Nikola Majdak | Duration 7’

Brainless Rabbits live in Rabbitland, a territory advertised as a seemingly perfect world that bears an unsettling resemblance to the landscapes of war zones, ghettos and slums. Their everyday life seems completely ordered and fulfilled. However, the Rabbits spend their days voting again and again, participating in a simulacrum of an electoral process that takes place once a day. Is this an exemplary free and democratic society or the worst of dystopias painted in vivid shades of pink?

Letters from Silivri

Adrian Figueroa | Duration 16'

Letters from Silivri draws on letters of the Turkish philanthropist and public intellectual Osman Kavala to document a timeline of his imprisonment. By separating voice and image, the film intends to create an echo chamber that allows audiences to listen more carefully to Kavalas letters, while at the same time placing his words in context of the civil society.

Without Kosovo

Dea Gjinovci | Duration 22'

The director and his father take the road to retrace the latter's exile as a 19-year-old refugee from Kosovo in 1968.