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Day and night Shida paints portraits of her husband, sons and grandson. All of them have been missing from the time of the bloody war in Bosnia, alike 27,000 other individuals. Even years after the end of the conflict, Shida does not stop dreaming that one day she will discover at least one of her lost sons at the threshold of their family house. She would also be relieved if at least some of them were able to be identified during the uncovering of the mass graves and she could give them a proper burial. "Earth promised that it would never keep anything from the Sky," as the Muslim saying shows. Eva, Amor, and Jasna work on the discovery of mass graves and the identification of remains for the Bosnian Commission for Missing Persons. They also hope that they unearth their loved ones among the exhumed bodies, and will be able to return their dignity to them. Over their efforts and pain hangs the bitter taste of disappointment that those guilty of the mass execution have not been punished yet in the Hague Tribunal.
The siege by Chechen separatists of the school in Beslan in September 2004 and the killing of hundreds of schoolchildren was one of the most horrifying stories of recent years. The terror of the children themselves, of their families and of their community threw into the challenge journalists face in reporting trauma as it affects particularly the young and the vulnerable.
Through the words of those left orphaned and bereft of family and friends, details of the 57-hour siege emerge, from the confusing first moments, when pupils heard noises they thought were balloons popping, to the numbing hours and days in the overheated gymnasium, to the devastating final hours, when bombs taped to walls and suspended from ceilings went off, and hundreds of panicked hostages, bullets flying around them, began scrambling over the bodies of victims in search of safety. Ranging in age from six to 12, the kids recount the events that robbed them of their family, friends and innocence - describing experiences that are chillingly familiar.
Her parents called Zainap Gashaeva "Coca" - the dove. Born in exile in Kasakhstan, she became a business woman and reared four children. Zainap has been documenting daily events since 1994: abductions, torture, murders. What has been declared an "anti-terrorist operation" by President Putin has taken on features of genocide. Up to thirty percent of the Chechen population may have been killed. The world is looking away; be it out of ignorance, helplessness or opportunism. Together with other women, Zainap has been hiding hundreds of videotapes. She is now bringing the videotapes to Western Europe to serve as evidence so that the guilty - on whichever side - are punished. Is she tilting at windmills?
In the spring of 2003, in the West African country of Liberia, the ongoing civil war fully exploded. The opposition movement Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) decided to overthrow President Charles Taylor, who had been accused of committing crimes against humanity in neighboring Sierra Leone, causing an international arrest warrant to be issued for him. The rebel army, formed primarily of children and other soldiers often high on drugs, succeeded in gaining control of three-quarters of the territory. Despite this, President Taylor refused to resign. In the summer, when tensions in the country were at their peak and the rebel army was setting off to capture the capital city of Monrovia, a pair of filmmakers arrived in the country. Experienced war reporter James Brabazon positions himself directly among the rebel army, while highly-acclaimed American director Jonathan Stack documents the events in the streets of Monrovia and in the immediate vicinity of Charles Taylor. In rapidly-moving footage pieced together from "both sides of the barricades" we follow the dramatic moments of the bloody conflict, where hundreds of innocent civilians fall victim each day, as they hopelessly wait for the arrival of peacekeeping forces. The creators of this coldly authentic and dynamically edited documentary film also follow the work of humanitarian organizations, which try to help the victims caught in the middle of the bloody massacre. This film, which was awarded the Amnesty International DOEN prize at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival, also features a number of songs by Bob Marley.
Forty-five-year-old Canadian Manon Brunelle decided to end her life because she could no longer bear the pain her illness caused her each day. Because of multiple sclerosis she had been confined to a wheelchair for ten years and was dependent on the help of others. She was an intelligent woman, who lived for her work in television and was always full of vigor, before she ended up in at an institution for patients with long-term illnesses. Sitting in a chair caused her pain, as did lying down, and even breathing. She tried committing suicide, but after three months in a coma her doctors were able to save her life. Manon therefore decided to leave for Switzerland, where euthanasia is permitted. The filmmakers accompanied the sick woman on her final trip and discussed with Manon about how she was before, how she is now, and why she no longer wants to live. The film in places is reminiscent of a feature film due to the numerous flashbacks and well-chosen music, yet this story of a woman defending her right to die is very real.
The fascinating story behind the Geneva Initiative, a peace for the Middle East. Set up by a group of seven very different individuals – three Israelis, three Palestinians and one Swiss – united by their dedication to achieve peace in the Middle East, the Geneva Initiative was officially launched in December 2003 on the shores of Lake Geneva. The film follows the team throughout a year of trying to tailor the Initiative to both the Israelis’ as well as to the Palestinians’ wishes. It is as undertaking that entails many joys, but also surprises, doubts and set-backs. Whilst the situation in the middle East has never been so bleak, the boundless faith of these committed people, which puts them in conflict with their family, friends and their societies, offers an unexpected ray of hope.
In 2002, Israel began the construction of a 500-kilometer-long wall, partly intersecting the occupied Palestinian territory. Each kilometer of this wall costs two million dollars. "It is an effective way to prevent Palestinian terrorists from access to our territory," says Amos Yaron of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in an interview about technical details of the entire construction project. Even after the International Court in The Hague decided that the construction of the wall was in conflict with international law, the laying of the massive concrete panels still continued. Throughout the film, French-Israeli director Simone Bitton, who herself comes from a Moroccan Jewish family, hears the stories of a number of people living in the immediate vicinity of the wall on both its sides, including the Palestinian workers participating in the construction. In many cases the camera plays the role of a silent witness, where a majority of the footage is so eloquent that it does not need commentary. The effective visual refinement of the film is intensified by its 35 mm format. The film can be viewed as a pictorial, psychological and deeply human study of the wall, which disfigures historically one of the most valuable areas in the world and which imprisons one nation in order to save the other. The absurdity of the entire construction is underscored in the closing scene, where Palestinian civilians are able, with considerable difficulty, to crawl up the gaps in the wall to visit their friends and families.
In 1979 in Nicaragua occurred the uprising of the Sandinistas, who overthrew the long running dictatorship of the Somozas. The government of the United States at that time was afraid that there would emerge a "second Cuba" in the region and began to organize and finance the anti-revolutionary movement of the Contras. The following civil war, in which over 50,000 people died, affected the lives of almost every Nicaraguan family. The members of the Rivera family's lives were forever changed in 1983, when their village was raided by the Contra units, who burned their house, abducted twelve-year-old José Antonio and his older sister Reina, and drafted them both into the army. Director Mercedes Moncada Rodriguez, creator of the remarkable film The Passion of María Elena, which was screened at the One World Festival in 2004, was also able in her second documentary film to fully use her unquestionable filmmaking talent, emerging out of the tradition of magical realism. This is a visually refined and spiritually tuned film which utilizes imaginative composition and effective music to reveal through the story of one family how deeply war can affect the lives of ordinary people. The recording of the unfortunate fate of a missionary bus serves as a type of metaphor in this poetic story, as it travels to the remote corners of Nicaragua bringing the Christian faith that represents comfort from the endured horrors of the war.
In 1992 the world slowly began to learn about the existence of concentration camps, mass executions, mass rape, and "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia. On May 25, 1993, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 827 for the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Located in The Hague, this forum of justice has come to be known as The Hague Tribunal. One of its missions from the beginning was to bring justice to the victims of war crimes and bring the guilty parties before the court. After eleven years of work the costs of The Hague Tribunal have exceeded 830 million dollars, while fewer than one hundred people have been found guilty. However, records of over 7,500 war crimes exist in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. A pair of documentary filmmakers from Sarajevo set off to The Hague and at the same time visited the Bosnian communities of Prijedor and Konjic. In these towns, they investigated how the local people are reconciling themselves with the suffering caused by the war and how they view the work of The Hague Tribunal. Has The Tribunal succeeded in fulfilling the goal for which it was created, or has it only been an expensive experiment created by pressure from the public and the media?
In 1994 there were over one million people massacred in Rwanda within a three-month period. The only thing that these people were guilty of was being Tutsis. Another Genocide of the 20th century took place as the world stood idly by. Ten years later three French documentary filmmakers undertook to show that this massacre was thoroughly planned out and that it could have possibly been prevented. The documentary film poses several unpleasant questions, primarily how the UN could allow such a tragedy to happen. The film examines in detail the somewhat lesser known role France played in both the history of the conflict, but also in the overall history of Rwanda. France as a former colonial power never gave up its interests on the African continent. This provocative investigative documentary is an indirect indictment of democratic countries including France, which decided not to take action for the sake of diplomacy.
In 2004, Darfur was labeled the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet. A calculated 'genocide' according to the United States. In summer 2005, Native Voice filmmaker Philip Cox and guide Dawd - who produced the Rory Peck award winning first reports from Darfur - spent 4 weeks traveling across Sudan to discover the current reality of this conflict that has provoked so much international outrage but seemingly so little action. This film shows an unseen picture of life inside Darfur after the international community has 'moved on'. Refugees hide in wadis and caves, too afraid to venture out. The two main rebel groups who once united to fight the government are now fighting each other. The assorted mixture of African Union troops who are charged with keeping the peace are confused and frustrated. Even though they are desperate for Africans to finally solve their own conflicts, they often find themselves with no fuel for their helicopters and their few thousand troops are almost useless to police such a vast country. They despairingly resort to watching their satellite TVs and playing cards. Darfur's Dirty War is a startling and insightful film with extraordinary access and testimonies from all sides of one of the conflict.
