Kosovo
Kosovo Delegation
July 21–August 1, 2011
Filmmaker: Marshall Curry
Delegate Expert: Sandra Ruch
Cities: Pristina, Prizren
Delegate Report
By Marshall Curry
Executive Summary
I arrived in Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo, very late in the evening of July 21, and was met by a representative of DokuFest, a renowned documentary film festival in Prizren, where we were headed. We drove two hours to that city and checked into the hotel.
The next morning I was introduced to many people involved with the festival, as well as other filmmakers—both local Kosovars and foreigners who had traveled to the festival from around the world. DokuFest is now in its tenth year and is reportedly one of the most—if not the most—important cultural events in Prizren, attracting thousands of people to this city of 150,000.
The festival was founded and is run by the quietly charismatic Veton Nurkollari, who has recruited scores of volunteers, many of them unemployed local youth who are looking for ways to practice their foreign language skills as well as learn about documentary film.
DOKUFEST outdoor screening venue in Prizren
The festival takes an unusual approach to screenings by making innovative use of local historical locations as temporary theaters: projecting films on the wall of the 500-year-old Ottoman castle that overlooks the city; tucking a small screening room into the League of Prizren Building (the loose equivalent of Independence Hall in Philadelphia); and building a screen and platform of seats directly over the river that runs through town.
The creative settings for screenings—as well as the high caliber of films that the organizers curate—have made DokuFest a much more significant festival than one might otherwise expect, given its limited budget and remote location. DokuFest is regularly listed among top international documentary festivals, including Hot Docs in Toronto and IDFA in Amsterdam.
Prizren
July 22: Prizren
I spent my first day in Prizren getting acquainted with the city. An Albanian journalist interviewed me, and we discussed my film If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front and how it applies to the Balkans. The film explores radical environmentalism, and we discussed the environmental movement in the region, as well as different tactics for achieving change, ranging from traditional approaches, such as voting and petitioning the government, to armed violence—both of which have been seen in Kosovo. His lengthy story ran in the local newspaper a few days later.
He also gave me a tour of the historical section of the city and filled me in on the culture and conflicts there.
July 23: Prizren—DokuFest Opening
DoKuFest opened with Patricio Guzman’s Nostalgia for the Light—a film that weaves together many themes (astronomy, memory, history, and politics), but focuses on the question of how the families of the “disappeared” in Chile should remember loved ones who went missing after the military coup in 1973. The screening, which took place in a large outdoor theater packed with people, generated numerous conversations about how people in Kosovo should process (or put aside) the memories of the conflicts there.
July 24: Prizren—Sandra Ruch Arrives; DokuFest Jury Duty
Sandra Ruch, the AmDocs Delegate Expert, arrived in Kosovo from Bosnia, where she had also worked as an Expert.
Press Conference with Marshall Curry, Veton Nurkollari, Sandra Ruch, Aferdita Krasnigi
In Prizren, she served on the Human Rights Competition Jury. I was on the Green Jury along with Petrit Ceku (a well known, Prizren-born classical guitarist) and Truls Lie (a journalist and filmmaker in Norway who edits DOX, the magazine of the European Documentary Network). Our jury watched seven films about environmental issues: The Kingdom of Coal; Paradise Later; Revansh; The 4th Revolution: Energy Autonomy; The Forgotten Space; The Pipe; and Wasteland. We awarded the prize to The Kingdom of Coal, made by a Kosovar filmmaking team that followed the controversy around the use of coal in Kosovo.
I attended “Design of Dissent,” a presentation by Mirko Ilic, a graphic designer from the Balkans who now lives in New York. He focused on how the design of posters, ads, magazines, t-shirts, etc. can be used to influence public opinion, create debate, and subvert authoritarianism.
July 25–27: Prizren—Press Conferences, Screenings, Interchanges with Kosovars
Sandra and I participated in a press conference with Aferdita Krasniqi, cultural affairs officer at the US Embassy, and Veton Nurkollari. At the event, which was well attended by both print and television journalists, we talked about the American Documentary Showcase and filmmaking in the United States. It was clear from their questions that many of the journalists were primarily familiar with Hollywood fiction films, so it was a great opportunity to explain the role of documentaries in the U.S.
If A Tree Falls screened at the Castle Cinema and was followed by a question- and-answer session about filmmaking, environmentalism, activism, the definition of terrorism, and more.
Marshall Curry preparing for Screening at DOKUFEST
In addition to the formal exchange events—panels, press interviews, Q&As—Sandra and I participated in dozens of less formal, but equally important, conversations with Kosovars and visitors from other countries. After the screening, for instance, a young filmmaker approached me and asked whether we might be able to meet up to discuss a project he was working on.
His film followed protesters in Croatia who were trying to stop a development project and were meeting stiff resistance. We discussed the craft of capturing and telling politically charged stories, as well as the challenges and opportunities of marketing such films—including festivals, the Internet, television, and so on.
In other situations Sandra and I struck up conversations in restaurants about our different countries, the films we were seeing, or current news. At one point during our visit, there was a border skirmish between Kosovo and Serbia that was threatening to escalate, which became a hot topic in the bars and coffee shops.
The other Showcase films that screened at DokuFest included One Lucky Elephant and Poster Girl, as well as a number of animated shorts. Poster Girl screened at the Cinema Lumbardhi and was followed by a spirited Q&A with Sandra.
Sandra Ruch, Aferdita Krasnigi, Veton Nurkollari
Over the course of the week, Sandra and I were often accompanied by Assistant Public Affairs Officer Jeni Washeleski and Cultural Affairs Officer Aferdita Krasniqi. They were terrific facilitators for the events, and provided us (and whatever group of film professionals we happened to be with) with a better understanding of the culture and politics of the region. They also helped to explain our points of view to locals—at one point, for example, translating a conversation between us and Kosovars about the border skirmish that was in the headlines.
Sandra and I were interviewed by a Kosovo television journalist who focuses on arts and culture. We discussed the film and the Showcase. After the interview we had tea with him and discussed politics and the history of the conflict. He told a harrowing story about being forced to flee his home in the night as the Serbs emptied his village of ethnic Albanians, and wait out the war in a Macedonian refugee camp.
July 28–31: Prizren—Photo Exbihits, Balkan Documentary Center Pitch Workshop, and Closing Night of DokuFest
We attended a photo exhibit in the ruins of a Roman bath. The exhibit showed photographs by Espen Rasmussen, a Norwegian photographer whose work focused on refugees around the world—a particularly appropriate topic for the region, given how many people have been turned into refugees by the wars. Unfortunately, the photographer had to return home to Oslo just after the opening, to be with his friends and family after the horrific bombing and shooting attack that had just taken place.
The next day, Sandra and I attended the Balkan Documentary Center Pitch Workshop. Seven documentary projects had been selected beforehand to pitch projects in a competition for grant support. We watched trailers and heard their pitches and gave them feedback on ways to sharpen the story and improve their projects. At the same time, we learned about a number of interesting Balkan projects, including films on wearing head scarves, protecting wildlife, remembering World War II partisan fighters, and so on.
The closing film of the festival was a series of impressionistic videos that had been created to accompany new songs by the musician PJ Harvey.
Conclusion:
Overall, this delegation was an extremely interesting and successful exchange of American culture and ideas with Kosovars and other international people who were attending the festival. It was also an opportunity to expose our American team to the culture and history of the Balkans.
I would like to thank the organizers of the festival, as well as Assistant Public Affairs Officer Jeni Washeleski, Cultural Affairs Officer Aferdita Krasniqi and Public Affairs Officer Paul Engelstad, who helped with logistics, language, and cultural translation for us.
Delegate Report
Sandra Ruch & Veton Nurkollari
By Sandra Ruch
Executive Summary
The staff at the US Embassy in Prizren, Kosovo—particularly Assistant Public Affairs Officer Jeni Washeleski and Cultural Affairs Officer Aferdita Krasniqi—created an excellent program for the Kosovo Delegation of the American Documentary Showcase. They arranged for filmmaker Marshall Curry and Delegate Expert Sandra Ruch to participate in the 10th DokuFest International Documentary and Shorts Film Festival, which ran from July 23–31, in Prizren. The festival is one of the major cultural events in Kosovo and the Balkan region. The US Embassy has supported DokuFest since 2006.
DokuFest screened the following Showcase films: If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front; One Lucky Elephant; and Poster Girl. In addition to the screenings, Marshall and I served as jurors on, respectively, the Green Dox competition and the Human Rights Dox competition.
Prizren
July 23–24: Prizren
Marshall arrived on July 23, and I arrived from Bosnia on July 24.
Prizren is located two hours from the capital city of Pristina and is considered the county’s cultural capital. Over the years, Prizren has seen both destruction and restoration, and has survived and overcome adversity.
The best example of this resilience is DokuFest, founded by artistic director Veton Nurkollari, who has raised the bar for film festivals in the region. DoukFest has grown from a modest regional event into one of the largest international festivals in Eastern Europe—despite the fact that Prizren has no official movie theaters for the festival.
Castle Cinema, the remains of the Prizren Fortress
The screenings take place at venues throughout the city and in the surrounding areas, including two extraordinary locations: a wooden platform over the Lumbardhi River known as Riverbed Cinema and the remains of the Prizren Fortress—Castle Cinema—atop a 500-meter hill that can only be reached by walking up a steep path. AmDocs films screened at both venues.
DokuFest’s primary audience is Kosovo’s youth, with the majority of attendees between the ages of 18 and 30. Overall, the festival attracts approximately 6,000 guests from around the region and the world. Kosovo has the youngest population in the world; 60 percent of the 18-to-30 demographic is under 25.
July 25-28: Prizren—DokuFest
Marshall and I attended a lecture by Iranian director and dissident Mohsen Makhmalbaf entitled “Iran Cinema: An Open-End Revolution?” and we later introduced a well-attended screening of Marshall’s If A Tree Falls at the Castle Cinema.
Over the next few days, we attended screenings of the Showcase films One Lucky Elephant and Poster Girl, the latter of which sparked a lively Q&A discussion about how the film was received by American audiences and how the protagonist of the film was faring.
I attended a screening of films by Kosovo students, who had 48 hours to create documentaries about Kosovo youth and HIV/AIDS. I was asked to comment on the works, which were extremely well made and addressed the issue in a very delicate way. AIDS is still a taboo subject and young people are not yet conscious of the importance of safe sex and birth control.
James Longley, Marshall Curry, Sandra Ruch
I met with fellow DokuFest jurors to review the films in the Human Rights Dox category: An Encounter with Simone Weil, Love During Wartime, Give Up Tomorrow, Blood in the Mobile, Cultures of Resistance and You Don‘t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo—which we selected as the best documentary. Blood in the Mobile received a Special Mention.
Elsewhere at DokuFest, Marshall and I met up with American filmmaker James Longley, who served on the International Feature jury; the festival also screened his films Sari’s Mother, Iraq in Fragments, and Gaza Strip.
Finally, Marshall and I met with Aferdita Krasniqi, cultural affairs officer, and Paul Engelstad, the new public affairs officer, who had just arrived for his post in Kosovo.
July 29–30: Prizren—Balkan Documentary Center Pitch Workshop
Marshall and I attended the Balkan Documentary Center (BDC) Pitch Workshop, which was organized by BDC Director Martichka Bozhilova.
The BDC chooses seven documentary filmmakers from Romania, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey, each of whom tackles a regional topic. These individuals are also assigned to mentorships with internationally recognized filmmakers and media professionals.
The seven filmmakers pitched their projects to a jury at DokuFest. Marshall and I served as observers, along with Romanian filmmaker Alexander Nanau, Serbian director Mila Turajlic, and Bosnian filmmaker Irena Taskovski, and we gave comments.
The next day Marshall and I attended a presentation by British singer PJ Harvey and Irish photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy, who showcased their series of video interpretations of each song on Harvey’s latest album Let England Shake.
Summary
Kosovo is a country still in the making. Sovereignty remains its biggest issue as Serbia still counts Kosovo as a prodigal province. However, 75 countries, including the United States and most of the European Union, disagree on that point. The US helped secure Kosovo its freedom and independence—and assisted in building a highway. As a result, Kosovans are very grateful and friendly to the US.
DOKUFEST
Prizren appears to be a cultural ray of light for the future of Kosovo and the Balkan region. The energy and optimism of the local youth and of those involved in DokuFest is undeniably contagious, leaving us all with the impression that they will confidently shine while paving the way through whatever lies ahead.
By bringing the American Documentary Showcase to Prizren, we helped to enrich Kosovo’s cultural scene and promote DokuFest on an international level. This support helps create a platform where arts and culture can contribute to the promotion of democratic values, ethnic tolerance and diversity and the promotion of peace in the region.
I would like to thank Cultural Affairs Officer Aferdita Krasniqi and Assistant Public Affairs Officer Jeni Washeleski, for the excellent program they created for us. Aferdita paved the way for the Showcase to have a large and important presence at DokuFest, and also served as our translator. It was a pleasure to have them at the screenings and other events. They helped us navigate our way through a very busy and challenging program.