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REXCulturalCenterDecember2004BelgradeSerbia

REXBelgrade

The multimedia project of PersonalCinema The making of Balkan Wars: the Game is presented from the 4th till the 12th of December in Belgrade.

In the premises of REX Cultural Center, visitors have the opportunity through a network of computers to view the game, navigate in the different rooms, choose their own avatar, chat with other players and see the artworks hosted within the virtual space.

The video works is also be projected on big screens while audiovisual material (DVD documentation) about the game is available for the visitors.

The opening has been programmed for Saturday the 4th of December 2004.

The presentation of the project in Serbia is made possible with the support of the Goethe Institut of Belgrade, the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and Pro Helvetia.

Text by SveborMidzic

EXTRA BONUS

The installation of : The making of Balkan Wars: the game in REX/Belgrade, is accompanied by video projects and documentaries referring to the war created by documentarists and artists coming from the ex–Yugoslavian countries. Some, are presenting to the public for the first time:

ON LOVE AFTERWARDS

video, 2003,

12.40 min

author: Milica Tomic

Milica Tomic created a new video work for compiler//01=DVD-magazine for contemporary art, in which she interviewed four partisans (three man and one woman). In a subtile way, she dissolves the documentary format by making certain statements into recitatives and refrains. On Love Afterwards is an artistic text with political impact, because it transforms individual experiences into a collective epos.

Susann Wintsch.

SAFE DISTANCE

video

black & white & blue

duration : 21 min

production: US AIR FORCE

post production: kuda.org , New media Center, Novi Sad

Safe Distance is a video that was recorded during NATO Air Strikes against FR Yugoslavia.Videotape shows electronic cockpit of the US Air Force plane. There were four airplanes flying from NATO base from Italy to destination in Yugoslavia. Mission objective was to bomb several targets in the area around city of Novi Sad. On the way back, after mission was completed, plane was shot. Tape ( Sony Video 8) was found near crashed plane in Fruska Gora mountain in Srem region.It shows electronic cockpit with basic graphical interface and voice communication between pilots. Videotape is a regular document of flight used by command structures to analyze its efficiency and success after very mission. The tape presents these last moments before the plane was crashed...

WHEN YOU SET SOMETHING ON FIRE DO IT BETTER!

When you set something on fire do it better! is an anti-war documentary, a stirring testimony on a war crime ordered by the superiors in the village of Kusnin in Kosovo in 1999. The documentary testifies about the war crime ordered by the superiors in Kosovo, in the village of Kusnin in 1999. A soldier from Belgrade, Danilo Tesic, reported to the security organs in Prizren that he, along with another soldier, Misel Seregi from Subotica, had murdered and burnt the bodies of two Albanian civilians in the village of Kusnin. The criminal proceedings were started before the Military Court in Nis. Danilo and Misel along with the lieutenant Colonel Zlatan Mancic and captain Rade Radojevic , were charged with the war crime against the civilian population. Meting out the penalty for Tesic and Seregi, theMilitary Court especially considered the fact that the soldiers had acted in line with the superiors orders, but the law is clear-an order by which a crime might be committed, must not be carried out. Zlatan Mancic was sentenced to fourteen- year prison term, Rade Radojevic was sentenced to tweleve-year prison term, Misel Seregi was sentenced to five-year prison term, whereas Danilo Tesic was sentenced to seven -year prison term. The voice of the injured parties could not be heard in the courtroom. It was enough to obtain the report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on missing persons in Kosovo. Two old men, Miftar and Selman Temaj, were the only missing in the village of Kusnin in April 1999. Their sons Muse and Halit , speak about the event in the WHEN YOU SET SOMETHING ON FIRE, DO IT BETTER!

author: Jasna Jankovic

directed by: Ivan Andrijanic and Ivan Stefanovic

duration: 33 min

2004

THE ABDUCTION

Ivan Markov's documentary examines the abduction and fate of sixteen muslim men from Sjeverin who went missing on the morning of October 22, 1992 , as they commuted to their jobs in Priboj. Abduction is a poignant story about neighbours, about the origins of hatred and about the profound suffering this incident caused. In the end, the film is the story of the first mass war crime against citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commited by members of a paramilitary formation under the command of Milan Lukic from Visegrad, the story of a crime told by witness who survived only by chance. Nobody has been brought to justice for this preventable crime, which indicates a failure by the state in a major test responsibility.

Directed by Ivan Markov

duration: 47 min

2002

ANATOMY OF PAIN

During the past decade in Serbia, unfortunate and bloody events have followed inrapid succession. Average viewers of visual media, both film and television, has been forced to constantly suppress their memory of past occurrences to make way for new, usually even more tragic events.The memory of the people, as they became accustomed to evil surrounding them, became shorter and shorter. The poignant, but now old, accounts of the refugees would be forgotten and replaced by even more poignant stories after each new adventure of the Milosevic regime. And then , in March 1999, war came home to roost in Serbia. NATO bombs were dropped on Serbian cities and towns and one of their targets was the Radio Television Serbia headquarters. For an entire decade this broadcaster's current affairs programs had been a monstrous propaganda tool of the Serbia regime, used to engineer and spread hatred and xenophobia throught the land. But there were no journalists among the sixteen employees of Radio Television Serbia slaughtered by NATO bomb that April night. The irresponsible and cavalier goverment of Serbia had left the technical staff in the building as a human shield. Their tragic deaths were exploited by the authorities in their media war against the superior enemy. The news of these deaths didn't stop the war, nor did it change international public opinion. Six months after this tragedy, the victims are remembered only by their families and a few of their colleagues who run the risk of being dismissed from their position at RTS.

direction: Janko Baljak

duration 30 min

2000

THE WAR IS OVER

This documentary is a story about Serbian refugees, as well as about the circumstances under which they fled their homes, their lives afer the war, collective reception centers where they live forgotten by everyone and without any future or hope of a normal life. The documentary consist of three stories about the people who had been forced to become refugees after the military actions of Croatians Army code - name Lightning ( Bljesak ) and Storm ( Oluja ) in 1995 , and after the Dayton Agreement in 1996. The first story is about the refugees from Western Slavonija who lived in the village of Tenja, near Osijek, shortly before the transition of this region to full control by Croatia. The second story is about people living in Bratunac, in the Republic of Srpska, who left their homes in a Sarajevo neighborhood that became part of the Muslim-Croatian Federation after the Dayton Agreement. The third story follows the fate of people who fled the region around Knin after the offensive by the Croatian Army in August 1995.

directed by: Ivan Markov

duration: 45 min

1998/99

VUKOVAR 1991

The Vukovar 1991 documentary is the first programme in the Words and Images of Hate series. It is part of the project whose goal is to show, both images and words, the role of the state-run TV in Serbia in the period from spring 1990 to winter 1993. Three horrible war months in that period belongs to Vukovar, a town in eastern part of Croatia. The Vukovar 1991 is an attempt to show how the Radio and Television of Serbia ( RTS ) informed its viewers about the then events. It is also a testimony how the journalistic profession in the state - run media had been losing and had lost its honor.

authors: Lazar Lalic, Isidora Sekulic and Ivana Lalic

directed by: Ivan Markov

duration: 40 min

1995