Bosnia and Herzegovina

A Roma family living far away from the urban centres ofBosnia-Herzegovina. The father Nazif salvages metal from old carsand sells it to a scrap-dealer. The mother Senada keeps the house tidy,cooks, bakes and cares for their two small daughters. One day, she feelsa sharp pain in her abdomen. At the clinic she is told there is somethingwrong with the baby she is carrying: “They say it’s dead.” She is at riskof septicaemia and they must operate immediately. More

Rahima (23) and Nedim (14) are orphans of the Bosnian war. They live in Sarajevo, a transitional society that has lost its moral compass, including in the way it treats children of the people who were killed fighting for the freedom of their city. After crime-prone adolescent years, Rahima has found comfort in Islam and she hopes her brother will follow in her footsteps. Their life of bare survival becomes even more difficult after Nedim gets into a fistfight with the son of a local strongman and breaks his expensive mobile phone. More

Luna and Amar are a couple. Their relationship is under great strain. First of all, Amar loses his job for being drunk at work. Luna is very worried and haslittle hope of realising her fragile dream of having a child with Amar. But her fears for their future increase when Amar takes on a well-paid job in aMuslim community hours away from where they live.Only after quite some time has elapsed during which they have had no contact with each other, is Luna allowed to visit Amar in this community of conservative Wahhabis in its idyllic lakeside location. More

Seventeen year old Lejla works with her friend Anci (25), in a noble hotel restaurant on the top of Sarajevo. One day Lejla meets Milos (43), a businessman who spent his student years in Sarajevo, before moving to Switzerland. At nightfall, Milos and Lejla rest in the hotel restaurant together and get closer to each other. Without knowing, what they will discover that next morning. More

"Snow does not fall to cover the hill, but for every beast to leave its trail.” Eastern Bosnia, 1997. Six women, a grandfather, four girls and a young boy live in war ravaged and isolated village of Slavno. Their families and friends had been killed and their bodies had never been found. The first snow brings full isolation and risk for life in the village. More

Esma (Mirjana Karanovic) is living with her 12-year-old daughter Sara (Luna Mijovic) in Grbavica, a quarter of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. Saras class plans to go on a school trip. Since children of fallen warriors in the last war are not supposed to pay, Sara thinks that she is one of them (because her mother told her that her father got killed in war). Esma has two things to deal with and that is the explanation to her only child that she was raped and that Sara's father is not a fallen warrior, and she has to collect the money for her daughter to go to the school trip. More

This film directed by Pjer Zalica was the best shown at the 2005 Global Lens Film Festival. It is now available on dvd in the USA courtesy of First Run Features. It includes a video introduction by the director. Fuse is set in Tesanj, a Bosnian town close to the Serbian border, two years after the civil war officially ended. Corruption and hatred are palpable and most townfolk are engaged in one type of illegal activity or another. More