Annie Long of Falls Church, VA Documents Bosnia's Post-War Struggles

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, Annie Long of Falls Church and seven other 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.

The JMU film crew was the first media outlet ever to be allowed to ride on the bus with the Mothers of Srebrenica, and the students conducted an extensive interview with the group's president, Hatidza Mehmedovic, at her home. Filled with emotional pleas and powerful storytelling, "A Mother's Walk" also contains haunting images, including bullet casings and wrist ties still lying on the ground 17 years after the mass killing of 8,300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in July 1995.

"Future Tense" features Melitca, a young woman from Belgrade who is studying to become a human-rights lawyer. She and others look toward a brighter future for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless, JMU students say change is likely to come slowly in the Balkans, where ethnic groups are largely segregated from an early age and the political structure can act as an impediment to progress.

Long, a senior, is majoring in media arts and design.

The trailer for the two student documentary films can be found here.

For more on JMU's summer study-abroad program in Bosnia, visit http://www.jmu.edu/international/abroad/jmu_bosnia.shtml or http://www.jmu.edu/stories/bethechange/bosnia-documentary-SMAD-students.shtml