From: Nebojsa Malic <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 4:33 PM
I commented on this "film" back when it first appeared: http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2009/02/hague-goes-hollywood.html Proved me right, they did. Nebojsa Schmid (the film director) added that he would like to show the film in the Serb region of Bosnia, where reaction may be very different. "The showing of the film in Banja Luka would be very interesting. What do they feel about what we are trying to say about Republika Srpska?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bosnians applaud German film on war crimes trials By Daria Sito-Sucic Daria Sito-sucic Mon Aug 17, 9:13 am ET SARAJEVO (Reuters Life!) – Around 3,000 Bosnians sat in silence through a screening of "Storm," an English-language thriller about the trial of a fictional Serb war criminal which they said exposed some of the pitfalls of international justice. Storm features New Zealand's Kerry Fox as a determined prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague who struggles against Serb nationalists, Brussels bureaucrats and the pressures of time. Her case is in danger of collapsing when the court rejects a new witness to rapes allegedly committed by the suspect, bowing to pressure from officials in Brussels who are lobbied by Serb nationalists. "To me, as a Bosnian, it was extremely important to see the way the tribunal functions," said Eldina Jasarevic, a university teacher, after the weekend screening. "The film gave me an insight into the behind-the-scene games and made me understand for the first time how the court bargains. It shattered many illusions I had about justice." German director Hans-Christian Schmid said the film was fictional, but included elements of cases he had studied. He admitted he was nervous presenting the movie at the Sarajevo Film Festival, where most in the audience had lived through the 1992-95 war at the center of the plot. Reaction was generally positive in Muslim-dominated Sarajevo, badly shelled during the Bosnian Serb siege leaving its inhabitants short of food, electricity and water. "I was very nervous presenting the film here," Schmid told Reuters in an interview. "You know that people who are going to see the film have lived through experiences, that they know more than you know." IMPORTANT LESSONS Nidzara Ahmetasevic, editor of the Justice Report covering war crimes trials in The Hague and Bosnia for the Balkan Investigative Network (BIRN) media organization, said the movie underlined how politics could derail justice. "This film has shown in a very honest way, and I think for the first time in this format, how much the Hague tribunal is a political institution," she said. "It sent a very important message -- that justice and law are not always on the same side, and that justice often depends on politics and many other elements." A screening of Storm in The Hague in July coincided with the tribunal sentencing of Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader Milan Lukic, elements of whose case Schmid used in the film, to life in prison. Lukic was convicted of killing at least 119 Bosnian Muslims -- many of them burned alive -- early in the war. But, according to Schmid, he was not charged for rapes he has been accused of. "What happened after the shooting of the film, in Lukic's case the prosecution wanted to come up with new witnesses about the rape and the judges said no more," Schmid said. "That, for us, was a kind of confirmation that we were dealing with the right issues. That meant a lot to us." After Lukic's conviction Bakira Hasecic, president of support group 'Women-Victims of War', said she hoped Milan Lukic and his cousin Sredoje Lukic -- who were both convicted in The Hague last month -- would be tried by Bosnia's own war crimes court for rapes and torture. "They only concentrated on the gravest crimes but it is only five percent of all the crimes they committed," said Hasecic, herself a rape victim during the war. Schmid added that he would like to show the film in the Serb region of Bosnia, where reaction may be very different. "The showing of the film in Banja Luka would be very interesting. What do they feel about what we are trying to say about Republika Srpska?" (Editing by Mike Collett-White and Paul Casciato) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090817/lf_nm_life/us_bosnia_1 Monday, February 09, 2009 Hague <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2009/02/hague-goes-hollywood.html> Goes Hollywood Couple of years back, the Berlin film festival went crazy over Jasmila Zbanic's "Grbavica", a propaganda flick about the Bosnian war that harped on the theme of (alleged, fictitious) mass rapes of Muslim women. This year, a German director is tapping into the Bosnian atrocity porn, with a film described as "critical" of the Hague Inquistion (ICTY), but in fact another exercise in mendacity and propaganda. Reuters reports <http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090207/entertainment/centertainment_us_berlin_warcrimes> : "German Bosnia film takes critical view of tribunal." Sounds intriguing, right? Except the story is described as one of a "determined prosecutor....struggling against time pressure and Serb nationalists." Huh? But wait, there's more: In "Storm," the prosecutor's investigation of rape and murder charges is hindered by a powerful network of nationalist Serbs and then foiled by her own poorly prepared case. But just before it collapses, a witness to the rapes comes forward. The trial is short-circuited by a behind-the-scenes deal involving the judge, the Serb's defense counsel and the prosecutor's pragmatic boss. Let me see if I get this. The heroic Prosecutor knows that these evil Serbs (is there another kind?) are guilty of horrible murders and systematic mass rapes, but there's just no darn evidence for it. I mean, why else would the case be "poorly prepared"? Does that imply she's incompetent? Oh no, no, the heroic Tribunal is probably just short of money, or something, and you know, having to actually prove these charges is just so damned inconvenient... And then, of course, there's a "powerful network of nationalist Serbs" - which is probably based on the equally chimeric "joint criminal enterprise to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia". That would be the alleged grand conspiracy every single Serb politician, soldier, policeman and whoever else they finger is automatically guilty of until proven innocent, never mind that it actually doesn't exist. But never fear! For our heroine will be saved by the Last Minute Miraculous Plot Device (i.e. the witness)! And then, just to be properly postmodern and angsty (it is, after all, a German movie - so optimism is verboten), the righteous victory is thwarted at its moment of triumph by Lawyer Show Trope #37, the "pragmatic boss" making a deal with a wicked defense counsel. The director, Hans-Christian Schmid, said "his film was fiction but was based on elements of cases he studied." Oh it's fiction, all right. Because none of these elements bear any resemblance to anything that's happened at the Inquisition. So, again, how is any of this actually critical of the ICTY? Oh sure, right, the incompetent (kind of?) prosecutor we're supposed to root for, and the evil "pragmatic" boss who cuts deals with war criminals. Right. Except, you know, the deal-making boss is a complete and utter fabrication, as are the Serb lawyers and the "nationalist network." The only thing that even remotely rings true is the "poorly prepared" indictment - but even then that's supposed to be a charming character flaw of the woman we're supposed to like. This isn't art, this is propaganda. The "criticism" amounts to accusing the Tribunal of not persecuting (not a typo) the Serbs hard enough - an accusation anyone even casually familiar with the Inquisition's opus over the past decade and a half would find utterly absurd. Almost every single Serb who was seized ended up convicted, bullied into false <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2009/01/pathetic-plavsic.html> confessions, or dead <http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=8706> . Meanwhile, "commanders" of the terrorist KLA are acquitted <http://www.blnz.com/news/2008/04/04/Crowds_greet_Kosovos_Haradinaj_acquitted_9019.html> , as are Muslim warlords <http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=9244> who've openly boasted of their butchery to the cheering Western press. Of course, had he tried to make a movie about the ICTY's epic failure to convict Albanian or Muslim warlords, Schmid wouldn't have received any funding. Had he somehow completed the movie anyway, it would have gone straight to DVD, rather than garner attention and praise at film festivals. But that's somewhat of a moot point, because it didn't even cross Schmid's mind to try, now did it? Everybody knows only the evil Serbs are criminals. And besides, note how the case at hand is about mass rape? Mass rape always gets media attention. Bleeding-heart interventionists in the West really love themselves some mass rape to get them in the proper mood of righteous indignation. Never mind that it's fiction, it's good fiction. In their minds, it should be true, and therefore it is. Kind of like Schmid's flick. But for all the shlock, tropes, cliches, racist stereotypes resurrected from Nazi propaganda and pure old horse manure, this little piece of Tribunal propaganda just had to go that extra inch, and add insult to injury by adopting the very name of a Croatian <http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=6861> military operation that ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Serbs in 1995. I understand the Germans have a vested interest in declaring the Serbs genocidal; they probably think having someone else labeled that way would somehow water down the stain on their character that remains from WW2. And it would also provide a handy justification for German crimes against the Serbs back then, just in case the Serbs ever bring them up. But even so, this Scheisse is just too much. Posted by Gray Falcon at 01:57 <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2009/02/hague-goes-hollywood.html> <http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=9230592&postID=6802822774099870530> <http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=9230592&postID=6802822774099870530> Labels: propaganda <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/search/label/propaganda> , rape <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/search/label/rape> , Serbs <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/search/label/Serbs> , war crimes <http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/search/label/war%20crimes>
