Na kraju tunela – Tunnel’s End

Synopsis

“Tunnel’s End” is a feature film documentary that presents the reconstruction of the historical facts which led Bosnia-Herzegovina first to war in the 1990s and subsequently into the social and political paralysis the country is suffering today.

The film steers clear from making the case for one side or the other; instead Tunnel´s end presents a comprehensive and complex view of contemporary Bosnia-Herzegovina through extensive interviews with politicians, human rights activists, journalists, artists, and war survivors from all ethnic groups. Through many voices the film draws a map of the war and its aftermath as seen from all angles.

The problem of coexistence, discussed again and again in Bosnian society, takes over the function of a centerpiece, which is referred to by protagonists in the film. Their statements are counterpointed by images from past and present. Besides using extensive archive footage from BHRT, “Tunnel´s end” manages to fit in the sceneries of the country that looks exactly as it is 16 years after the war: wounded, destabilized and defiant.

The documentary focuses on four areas: Sarajevo, Mostar, Srebrenica and Prijedor, each area represents different aspects of the 92–95 bosnian conflict and documents the geographical and ethnic diversity of a country.

Credits

  • Directed and produced by MÓNICA LLEÓ
  • Soundtrack DEJAN TERZIC
  • Editing IVAN ALEDO
  • Photography JAKE WESTWOOD Y MÓNICA LLEÓ
  • Sound ALMIN OMEROVIC
  • Design and graphism ISIDRO FERRER
  • Production company 0,05KM PODUCCIONES.S.L. in colaboration with BHRT.

Na Kraju tunela ((Tunnel´s End) 2008, 99 minutes

SEVILLA EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL. October 2008
SOUTH EAST EUROPEAN FIL FESTIVAL. Los Angeles, April 2009
Awarded to best novel director and use of archive material

PRAVDO LJUDSKI. 5th Human Rights Film Festival. Sarajevo. Novembre 2009

Lola Álvarez, 06-11-08

It could be a nice title to define the feeling that those who voted for Senator Obama last Tuesday must have, bringing about a historical change. But not. I have borrowed it from Mónica Lleó, a photographer and young documentary filmmaker who next Tuesday, within the program of the European Film Festival, will present an impressive work at the Fundación Tres Culturas, entitled thus, on the bloodiest conflict that occurred in Europe after World War II: the Bosnian war.

It began in April 1992, the eve of the Expo, and left a balance of more than 100,000 dead, 44,000 raped women, and close to two million displaced persons. The conflict, which lasted for three years, ended with the independence of Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegoviana and Croatia.

The media, and especially television, served us daily with images of horror: concentration camps, massacres of civilians, rapes, live bombings… The burning of the Sarajevo library became the symbol of a barbarity that, Beneath the shell of ethnic and religious differences, it was hard to believe that it was taking place in the very heart of civilized Europe.

The reasons that led to that confrontation have not yet been established, but there are those who are determined to promote it. “At the end of the tunnel” is a good example of this. From the perspective of those who lived through the conflict, bringing together all the visions that intersected, without taking sides except for the search for the truth, the author has tried to respond to the inexplicable: a civil war in which there were victims and executioners. on all three fronts, which ended without winners or losers and which – to this day – continues to be misunderstood. For the first time she’s gone solo, she’s shown that she’s capable of doing impossible things, and she does. I knew that conflict up close and I know that trying to tell it is anything but easy.

If you have ever wondered the reason for that barbarity, it will be worth it to approach the Foundation on Tuesday.