Not twenty years ago, Serb forces swept through Bosnia and Herzegovina, targeting Bosnian Muslims in a horrific campaign of violence and brutality – their efforts have been classed as ethnic cleansing. Men were captured and shot, while their wives and daughters were taken to detention camps and held captive in large warehouses. The women were treated as subhuman and soldiers systematically raped, abused and humiliated them at will. All this in a country on the fringes of Europe, not too far from Italy. However, despite it being recent and close to home, the people’s suffering during the war has not fully entered European public consciousness.
In As If I’m Not There, director Juanita Wilson explores this grim reality through the eyes of the strikingly beautiful Samira, a young woman from Sarajevo, who leaves her family home and moves to the beautiful Bosnian countryside to teach in a small village there. Before she has had time to settle into her new life and get to know the people, armed Serb forces arrive and round up the villagers. They shoot the men, force the women onto buses and set the village alight. Samira shouldn’t be on the bus. There has been a mistake, but she can do nothing about it. She is brought to a detention camp with the other women. Her enduring beauty and youth attract the unwanted attention of the soldiers in the camp and she, like so many other women, is subjected to their brutality and drunken desire.
As If I’m Not There is a film about humanity and inhumanity, about women and war, about rape and, notably, about the aftermath of such atrocities for the victims. We follow the hauntingly beautiful Samira throughout, witnessing the horrors that unfold all around her. There is much to loathe in what we see, but even in this bleak, brutal world of abuse and violence, humanity survives in the solidarity of the women. To have shied away from the hard truth of the experience of Samira and these women would have been a betrayal, but As If I’m Not There does not do this – it remains honest and is all the more powerful and engrossing for it. Morally complex, it is not always easy viewing, but its power marks you indelibly, staying fresh in the mind for days afterwards.
As If I’m Not There is playing during the Jameson Film Festival in Dublin on February 26th at 17:00 in Cineworld. Director Juanita Wilson will be attending the screening.
Director: Juanita Wilson
Starring: Natasa Petrovic, Stellan Skarsgard
(There’s no available trailer, but below is a selection of clips from the film – unsubtitled, unfortunately.)
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