Jasmila Zbanic : "Bosnian pain can be felt by anyone"

Published on May 1, 2014

Culture

"I wanted to make some­thing that would help me de­fine my coun­try twenty years after the war", ex­plains Jas­mila Zbanic. Then a friend told her about a play by an Aus­tralian play­wright and ac­tress, Kym Ver­coe, in­spired by her own ex­pe­ri­ence in a Bosn­ian city named Viseg­rad. Fa­mous for its bridge and ar­chi­tec­ture, the place re­veals it­self to be a sym­bol of the atroc­i­ties per­pe­trated dur­ing the war.

cafébabel : What’s your per­sonal re­la­tion­ship to the city of Viseg­rad?

Jas­mila Zbanic : I heard what hap­pened in Viseg­rad when the war started in 1992, but I was there just once be­fore the war, never after. It is just an hour and a half ago from Sara­jevo but it feels more far away than Paris to me. When we de­cided to make this film, it was also a sort of self ex­plo­ration; it made me won­der why I also in a way de­nied that this city was what it was. When you live in Bosnia, there are so many sad sto­ries that some­how you have to close your ears and your eyes in order to live and go on. It was a real chal­lenge for me to make this film, be­cause of the way peo­ple would react. I was of course afraid.

cafébabel : The at­mos­phere of the movie is re­ally tense… Is it re­ally the at­mos­phere one feels in Viseg­rad?

Jas­mila Zbanic : It is. You know, we trav­elled sev­eral times be­fore the shoot­ing. I thought it was be­cause I knew what had hap­pened, but later I met a lot of peo­ple who didn’t know and they said they had the same feel­ing. These si­lences, the no talk­ing, put such a big pres­sure on the whole city.

Shoot­ing the po­etic power

cafébabel : But at the same time it does have a po­etic power…

Jas­mila Zbanic : Yes, that’s why I was at­tracted to it.  This bridge is am­biva­lent be­cause it is beau­ti­ful in one way but it is also very scary. The river is beau­ti­ful but when you know that plenty of dead bod­ies were in it, then you have a dif­fer­ent emo­tion. And I liked that it’s am­biva­lent, that you are never cer­tain of the beauty of things.

cafébabel : How were the film­ing con­di­tions there?

Jas­mila Zbanic : I had al­ready made a film in 2006 about mass rapes (Gr­bav­ica, who won the Golden Bear at the 56th Berlin In­ter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val) and politi­cians said in every paper that I was against Serbs be­cause I said war crimes hap­pened. When or­ga­niz­ing the shoot­ing with the crew, we talked to local peo­ple and they said there was no way we could shoot con­sid­er­ing the topic, that it wasn’t safe. For­tu­nately, a friend of mine, a Ser­bian di­rec­tor, agreed to come with us, and some­how it worked.

For those who can tell no tales, trailer

cafébabel : When did you de­cide to make a movie out of Kym Ver­coe’s play?

Jas­mila Zbanic : In the year 2012, it was 20 years since the be­gin­ning of the war (I was 17 when it started) and I was in a weird po­si­tion of not being able to de­fine it, to put it in a box some­how and say “that’s it”. So I wanted to make some­thing which would help me fig­ure out what my coun­try looks like now. I was search­ing for a story that would deal with this topic. By chance, I saw Kym Ver­coe’s the­ater play and found my story. I was se­duced be­cause she was talk­ing about emo­tions, how the coun­try is beau­ti­ful and won­der­ful on the sur­face, but how many things are still going on. And that is also my feel­ing while liv­ing in Bosnia.

cafébabel : Did it sur­prise you that some­one from so far away as Aus­tralia could be so in­ter­ested in Bosnia?

Jas­mila Zbanic : Yes of course. Kym (who plays her own part in the movie) dis­cov­ered Viseg­rad by ac­ci­dent, when trav­el­ling to the Balkans. She de­cided to visit the city and felt some­thing very deep. It tells us that all human be­ings are the same. It doesn’t mat­ter what na­tion­al­ity you are, you could still feel the same basic emo­tions. It is not only Bosn­ian pain; it can be felt by any­one.

A whole sys­tem cov­er­ing up crimes

cafébabel : Are war crimes still a big taboo in your coun­try?

Jas­mila Zbanic : The fact is that peo­ple who were run­ning the war had noth­ing be­fore and are now multi mil­lion­aires, so of course they are still try­ing not to open this box. They are try­ing to push fear and ha­tred amongst peo­ple so that they don’t think of them as prof­i­teers. The taboo comes from these peo­ple who still have power in pol­i­tics, media, ed­u­ca­tion and po­lice; they are still in­te­grated very much in the so­ci­ety.

cafébabel : The po­lice cars wan­der­ing in the streets of Viseg­rad clearly re­mind us of this po­lit­i­cal pres­sure…

Jas­mila Zbanic : Yes, it is a whole sys­tem cov­er­ing up these crimes. It is such a small city, and when they have for­eign­ers com­ing, they think of them as in­ves­ti­ga­tors for in­ter­na­tional tri­bunals, and im­me­di­ately want to scare them away. What hap­pened is that a lot of war crim­i­nals stayed dur­ing the war in po­lice struc­tures and in tri­bunals. We often think that when the war is over, all war crim­i­nals are gone, but the fact is that just a few are tried, and a lot stay and live a nor­mal life.

cafébabel : Is it a film on mem­ory duty?

Jas­mila Zbanic : For me, the main im­pulse for the film was Kym’s ac­tions, the way she re­acted when she learned about the crimes. I think we are very often taught to be pas­sive in life, but small ac­tions can pro­voke chain re­ac­tions. It led to her the­ater play and to my movie for in­stance. The story is trav­el­ling and peo­ple learn about the topic...

cafébabel : What does it bring you per­son­ally to make films about your coun­try?

Jas­mila Zbanic : I chose to make movies be­cause of a pas­sion or ob­ses­sion that I had about cer­tain emo­tions and sub­jects. And to me, there’s no point in mak­ing a movie if I am ex­actly the same at the be­gin­ning and at the end. Films do change me, es­pe­cially when I work with a team, and when every mem­ber adds its view to the pro­ject.  I have a strong Eu­ro­pean team, and peo­ple from dif­fer­ent coun­tries work­ing to­gether pro­vides such a good en­ergy!