2012 Nov 6

The majority of college students today are too young to remember the Bosnian War (1992-95) or the U.S.-led intervention, but for a group of student filmmakers from James Madison University the experience of visiting the war-torn country this past summer and documenting its struggles on the road to reconciliation is one they won’t soon forget. For five weeks in June and July, eight JMU students under the direction of Shaun Wright, assistant professor of media arts and design, participated in a unique study-abroad program examining the role of media in a post-conflict society. Their journey produced two short documentary films: “Future Tense,” which offers a youth perspective on the deep divisions that persist among the region’s major ethnic groups — Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks — and what can be done in order to move forward, and “A Mother’s Walk,” which follows the Mothers of Srebrenica on one of their yearly visits to the remote hillsides where their sons, husbands and fathers were massacred by Serbian troops under the command of Gen. Ratko Mladic. Area filmmakers included: