Towards a cultural geopolitics: on the making of a documentary-poetry film about a post-conflict place

Abstract

Made in collaboration with an independent filmmaker and two poets, the documentary-poetry film Bridges <Bosnia 20> presents life in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, and delivers a clear message: the war in Bosnia is not yet firmly located in the past. Shot through a computer screen, Bridges <Bosnia 20> forces the viewer to witness the war in Bosnia and its aftermath via-the-gaze of an unknown spectator, sitting on an Apple Mac laptop. Through this modern technological distancing, we re-present here images of war in a digital age, question how war is usually packaged and represented on television, and in turn interrogate, through poetry, how war is traditionally remembered and memorialised. In so doing, Bridges <Bosnia 20> leads us to a conclusion, in Srebrenica, in 2015: in order to invest in the possibility of a just future after conflict, it is necessary to acknowledge the unthinkable realities to which traumatic experience bears witness.

Watch the film Bridges <Bosnia 20> here and visit the Bridges <Bosnia 20> website for more information