[spectre] In Balkans, Video Letters Reconcile Lost Friends [u]

[Thomas Keenan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/movies/09ridi.html

The New York Times
June 9, 2005

In Balkans, Video Letters Reconcile Lost Friends
By ALAN RIDING

PARIS, June 8 - Documentary film directors are often inspired by a dose 
of
idealism, and even by the belief that their exposure of some atrocity or
injustice can stir public outrage and government action. But rare is the
case where filmmakers actually set out to do good and can claim to have
achieved it. Eric van den Broek and Katarina Rejger are two such
directors.

Five years ago, having already made several movies about the aftermath 
of
the Balkan wars of the 1990's, the Dutch couple embarked on an
extraordinary project called "Videoletters, " designed to further
reconciliation among people from the former Yugoslavia who had once been
friends and who had been separated and even alienated by the bloody
nationalist conflict.

The idea was simple: someone who had lost touch with, say, a childhood
friend or a lifelong neighbor from a different ethnic group was invited 
to
record a message. The directors then traced and showed the video letter 
to
the "lost" friend, who was usually eager to reply. In most cases, the
exchange resulted in an emotional reunion.

What has given these experiences political weight, however, is that 
since
April, nine of these video letters have been broadcast by television
stations in each of the seven nations that were once Yugoslavia -
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and
Macedonia.

"I think in general the reaction has been very positive," Mr. van den
Broek said Monday in a telephone interview from Montenegro, a stop on a
bus tour across the former Yugoslavia in which he and his partner are
showing video letters in villages. "It's about people and that's what 
they
recognize. It's not about politics."

Six of these video letters will be shown at the Human Rights Watch
International Film Festival (hrw.org/iff), opening Thursday at the 
Walter
Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in New York. It will screen 20 feature
movies and documentaries through June 23. "Videoletters," to be shown in
two groups between June 19 and 23, is also the winner of the festival's
2005 Nestor Almendros Prize, named after the late Spanish 
cinematographer.
The festival's program includes films set in Northern Ireland, Kenya,
Iraq, Brazil, China, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Palestine as well as
the former Yugoslavia - movies that might otherwise never reach a wider
public. More fundamentally, though, the festival is itself a declaration
of cinema's power to expose human rights abuses and to celebrate those 
who
combat them.

Rather than revisiting horrors, the project seeks to demonstrate that
reconciliation is possible, starting with individuals for whom ethnic
differences were unimportant - many former Yugoslavs are themselves of
mixed extraction - until the conflicts convulsed their lives.

In "Ivana and Senad," one episode to be shown, Ivana Nikolic, a Serb,
records a video letter to Senad, a Muslim boy with cerebral palsy whom 
she
informally adopted at a Belgrade hospital and who fled the city when war
erupted. After a lengthy search, which leads first to Senad's peasant
parents, Mr. van den Broek and Ms. Rejger find the boy in another town 
and
show him Ivana's message. They filmed Ivana's reunion with Senad.

"Emil and Sasa" recounts how the war separated two youths who grew up in
Pale, the wartime capital of the Serb-dominated area of Bosnia. Emil,
whose father is Muslim, fled to the Netherlands, while Sasa, whose 
father
is Serb, was recruited into the Bosnian Serb Army. Now Sasa reaches out
with a video letter, but Emil is troubled by rumors that Sasa killed a
Muslim acquaintance in the war. Sasa fervently denies the accusation and
Emil finally agrees to talk it all over in person.

Mr. van den Broek said that at first many people were unwilling to make
video letters for fear of being rebuffed or of being thought traitors. 
"It
was easier to deliver them because we would tell people they'd received 
a
video letter and ask if they'd like to see it," Mr. van den Broek
recalled. "We wouldn't say who sent it, so they were curious. And when
they saw it, they'd break down in tears."

Only in two cases, he said, did recipients refuse to respond. In the
divided city of Mostar, a Muslim sent a video letter to a Croatian 
friend
who lived nearby but whom he had not seen in nine years. Mr. van den 
Broek
said the Croatian consulted a Catholic priest, who ordered him not to
respond. And in a second case, he said, a Serb refused to answer a video
letter from a Muslim friend because he feared it would become known that
he had fought alongside the Muslims.

Now, bolstered by good television ratings, the project has grown. Its
website (videoletters.net) offers guidance and information. Actors and
singers have recorded video letters to fellow artists of other
nationalities. Across the region, there are 60 places where people can
record their own video letters. Bosnian radio stations now announce 
when a
video letter has arrived from Serbia so that, if willing, its addressee
can come forward.

Accompanied by a multiethnic team of 25, including a five-piece band, 
Mr.
van den Broek and Ms. Rejger have also begun showing video letters and
organizing debates in different communities. "We start the day at 
school,
where children are invited to draw their 'dream flags' instead of 
national
flags," Ms. Rejger said. "Sometimes children bring their parents to the
screening. Others come because they have seen the video letters on
television."

She says that she and Mr. van den Broek have also been welcomed in towns
where once they were not. And in two war-scarred towns, she says,
officials are now cooperative. Pale's mayor, for instance, recorded a
video letter to mayors across the former Yugoslavia, while the mayor of
Srebrenica, where 7,000 Muslims were massacred in 1995, sent a
conciliatory message back.

The directors have been approached by the Dutch government with the idea
of expanding their project to Israel and Palestine, Russia and Africa. 
"We
don't want to do it ourselves, but we'd like to train people and offer 
our
support," Mr. van den Broek said. "We've become managers of a great 
team,
but we'd like to film again."

     * Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company