Cinema and TV representations in the Balkans

Among religious leaders present, were the ‘mufti’ of Sofia, Ali Hairradin, Archimandrit Sioni, Rector of St. Ivan Rilsky Theological Academy, Christo Koulichev, President of the Council of Evangelical Congregational Churches in Bulgaria and Mevlud Dudic, Principal of the Islamic School in Serbia.

The mornings were devoted to paper presentations of the media situation in the Balkans, in particular the images and representations of faith in the media in the Balkans. Interpretation was not too good, but this is always going to be a problem in a region where so many languages are spoken. Bulgarian standard time is pretty unique - and the morning sessions frequently continued until the late afternoon. The evening sessions were all image-based, audio visual presentations of key television documentaries and features films from the region.

We were privileged to see some excellent documentaries from the region. The list of docus/films that we saw included ’Our Neighbourhood’ (Nashe Maalo), a production from Macedonia - a children’s television programme intentionally directed towards creating a tolerant environment, mutual respect and understanding among the various ethnic communities residing in Macedonia - Albanians, Macedonians, Roma and Turks. Macedonia had escaped the devastating wars experienced by its neighbours in Bosnia and Kosovo and the producers of this programme who were present, were of the opinion that local journalists played a major role in averting war against the greatest of odds (CNN had, expecting war, located 200 + of its staff in Skopje and had produced a number of programmes that fanned ethnic rivalry between Macedonians).

’Christmas for Loosers’ by Stoyko Petkov was a film on the conflict in the Balkans. ’The Unwanted’ by Adela Peeva - an excellent documentary on the plight of Bulgarian Turks who had been disenfranchised by the government in the mid-90’s. They were forced to change their names and to disavow their Turkish culture. Many tried to emigrate to Turkey but the Turkish authorities were not keen on this exodus. The Turkish authorities typically give one visa per household.

This has led to children being smuggled into Turkey. Adela’s film traces the story of three families - a family of poor tobacco farmers, a former MP and a doctor. The MP and the doctor, as official representatives of the former Communist government, were responsible for carrying out anti-minority policies against their own community.

The film is essentially about victims – the poor farmers and the collaborators who were victims of an essentially unjust system. ‘Pretty Village, Pretty Flame’ is a feature film from Yugoslavia - winner of numerous film awards, a story of a Muslim and Serb, finding themselves on opposite sides during the armed conflict. This is a rather dark story of the depths of human violence, and the manner in which ‘normal’ human beings can become sub-human. The texture of the film was based on the negative use of images, metaphors and symbols by the warring parties against each other.

One of the ways in which WACC can help media work in this region is to support initiatives linked to networking. This was the first time that film makers from the region had the opportunity to meet each other and it was an important learning experience for the participants.