balkan black box

The Walls of Kosovo – Kosovské zdi

Regie: Aleksandar Maniæ; 58 Min., CZ 1998 (OmE)
Wettbewerb: Regionalfokus Kosovo

ACUDkino, So, 19.11.2006 um 21:00 Uhr

Kosovo 1998, kurz vor der Nato-Intervention: in Interviews mit der einheimischen Bevölkerung dokumentiert der kommentarlose Film die Lage von Serben und Albanern.

Zusammen mit: Welcome to Plementina, Romanes

Kosovo 1998, shortly before the NATO-intervention: by letting local inhabitants speak, this verité-style documents the tense relations between Serbs and Albanians.

Walls surround Albanian houses in Kosovar villages. In the eyes of many Serbs, they seem like unconquerable castles. Since 1992 a wall has divided the elementary school in Priština into Serbian and Albanian parts. Local children live from a very young age with the notion that an insurmountable barrier divides one ethnic group from the other. Coexistence of Serbs and Albanians in today's Kosovo is in ruins. Belgrade is far away, and the politicians responsible for the Kosovo question are so lacking in knowledge about the basic needs of Serbian and Albanian coexistence in Kosovo that one cannot expect the wall between both ethnic groups to be torn down anytime soon. Serbian police and soldiers patrol here instead of negotiators; there is random revenge; even innocent villagers are murdered. Albanians are increasingly reaching for guns smuggled across the border from nearby Albania.

Aleksandar Maniæ's documentary captures today's troubled relations in Kosovo. It presents the Serbian as well as the Albanian point of view.