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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Beyond Post-war Cinema. Historical Experience and Cultural Agency in Post-Yugoslav Film
Text.Serial.Journal
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Projects & Abstracts
2016-10-01
2021-09-22
2016-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Asja Makarević
2016/10/01
Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main
2036-461X
26-27
en
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Beyond Post-war Cinema. Historical Experience and Cultural Agency in Post-Yugoslav Film
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16456/16778
16
Beyond Post-war Cinema. Historical Experience and Cultural
Agency in Post-Yugoslav Film
Asja Makarević / Ph.D. Thesis Project1
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main




   Bosnia and Herzegovina is still considered a post-war country, both by its
inhabitants and external observers. The concept of ‘post-war’ implies that the
country and its people are tied more strongly to the past than they are oriented
towards the future. A post-war society appears to be permanently overshadowed
by the past, while the future is permanently postponed. Paradoxically, as long as
the future is kept at bay and the post-war condition kept alive, Bosnia maintains
certain significance on the global scene. However, living in the temporal vacuum
of the post-war condition cannot be a long-term perspective. But when and how
will the status of a ‘post-war’ society be lifted?
   This project asks to what extent films and filmmakers can contribute towards
overcoming the post-war condition.
   Inevitably, war is a major topic in contemporary post-Yugoslav films. The ex-
perience of war comes to the fore in cinema either through conventional repre-
sentation or through what one could call, drawing on a concept of Gilles Deleuze,
strategies of non-representation.2 By conventional representation I mean clichés
and images with definite and stabilized meanings, which produce no further as-
sociations. Non-representation, on the other hand, refers to images that encour-
age attentive spectatorship, evoke various and often conflicting experiences and
are open to multiple layers of meaning.
   A range of films, like Jasmila Žbanić’s For Those Who Can Tell No Tales (2013),
Bobo Jelčić’s A Stranger (2013), Aida Begić’s Children of Sarajevo (2012), Šejla
Kamerić’s 1395 Days without Red (2011), Vladimir Perišić’s Ordinary People
(2009), Goran Dević and Zvonimir Jurić’s Blacks (2009), and Namik Kabil’s
Interrogation (2007) with its follow-up film Inside (2013), provide spectators with
non-representational images that offer innovative approaches to the collective
past, while simultaneously reframing contemporary experience. What I propose


1
 Ph.D. thesis supervised by Prof. Vinzenz Hediger. For information: asja.makarevic@gmail.com
2
 See Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994);
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image (London: Continuum International Publishing Group,
2011); Gilles Deleuze, ‘Nomadic Thought’, in Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, (Los
Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004), pp. 252–261.

                                      Cinéma & Cie, vol. XVI, no. 26-27, Spring/Summer 2016
                                   Asja Makarević


to call non-representational images in post-Yugoslav cinema appear to offer a
more dynamic relationship to the past and the present, while reflecting complex
processes of the formation of collective and individual identity, memory, guilt
and responsibility.
   But if these dynamics are inherent in non-representational images, is there
indeed a way in which such images can contribute to overcoming the post-war
condition? In order to answer this question, I propose to examine the emergence
of non-representational images of war within post-Yugoslav contemporary cin-
ema of the last fifteen years (i.e. since 2000). In particular, I want to investigate
how contemporary images of war shape film aesthetics and development of film
language in post-war Yugoslav cinema, and to what extent non-representational
strategies and their reception contribute towards the process of reconciliation.
   In order to address the social relevance of non-representational images of war
in addition to their aesthetic properties, my project will include an inquiry into
the role of the Sarajevo Film Festival in selecting, showcasing and supporting
production and circulation of post-Yugoslav films. I aspire to explore whether
and how the Sarajevo Film Festival as a privileged showcase of post-Yugoslav
film contributes to the overall discourse on reconciliation within post-Yugoslav
society.
   The Sarajevo Film Festival was founded in the days of the siege of Sarajevo
as an act of resistance and strife for life. Coming out of its intimate phase as
a small-scale event that gathered international filmmakers and intellectuals to
celebrate the city’s survival, over the course of twenty years it has grown into
an international film festival with a focus on the broadly understood region of
Southeast Europe. From the industry perspective, over the past decade the fes-
tival has aspired to become the hub for regional film professionals, as it plays an
important role in the development and financing of European co-productions
in the region. A close, inter-dependent relationship between the festival and the
local society has remained throughout the years. It is embodied in the inner-city
open-air cinema experience for up to 3000 people. The local audience is used to
getting exposed to films produced in former Yugoslavia. Recognizing the need of
society to engage with contemporary cinema, which, at the same time, reflects on
the problematic past, the festival has come up with modes, which support wider
circulation of non-representational images.
   In particular, I want to find out to what extent the festival encourages the pro-
duction and promulgation of films that avoid the use of representational images
of war and address both the historical experience of war and the contemporary
experience of post-war society through non-representational strategies.
   The films in the corpus have been selected in terms of the way they deal with
individual and collective memory, the relationship of past and present and their
choice of representation and non-representational strategies. In addition, the
corpus primarily includes films that premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival.
   Overall, my research can be divided in two major segments: the first segment
covers a wide range of issues, from positioning the meaning of non-representa-

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tional (in relation to representational) images, exploring benefits and limitations
of both modes, providing their diachronic analysis (film production of the last
fifteen years in relation to the time before), to discussing their impact on rec-
onciliation (cultural aspect) and the development of film language (aesthetical
aspect). One of the main objectives is to enquire about whether post-Yugoslav
cinema is more defined by the emergence of different national cinemas or by its
shared, transnational identity.
    The second segment focuses mainly on the role of Sarajevo Film Festival in ex-
hibiting and fostering the distribution of non-representational images and stimu-
lating their further production on one hand, while contributing to reconciliation
within the present-day post-Yugoslav society on the other.




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