Fifteen years after the Balkan massacres, the women of Srebrenica still spend day after day searching for the remains of their husbands, brothers and sons. Their lives, marked by this ceaseless quest, are the central focus of the film Belvedere, which premièred in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo this week.

By Mitra Nazar

Dozens of films and documentaries have now been made about the massacre in the little town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia. In July 1995, towards the end of the Bosnian War, the supposedly safe Muslim enclave of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian-Serb forces, who went on to slaughter 8,000 Muslim men and boys. The Dutch UN battalion whose task it was to keep the Muslims safe failed to prevent the bloodbath.
Fifteen years on, the Fall of Srebrenica is history. But it will be a long time before the scars of the genocide in the Bosnian town are healed. Belvedere shows what post-war life is like for the women who survived and stayed behind.

Genocide
The camera follows a number of these women, who spend their days looking for the remains of their loved ones. These are the mothers, wives and sisters of Bosnians who died in the genocide at Srebrenica in 1995.

The women of Srebrenica cling tightly to the search for their family’s remains. They will only be able to rest when what is left of their loved ones has been found, identified and buried. And they wait in vain for a time when the horrific images ingrained in their memories start to fade.

• Listen: film director Ahmed Imamovic on lingering injustice after the Srebrenica massacre:

Director Ahmed Imamovic believes it is more harrowing to examine the scars of war than the war itself. “It is an affront to human dignity to see how these women are still searching for the bones of their sons and husbands 15 years after the massacre,” reflects the filmmaker, who previously won a European Film Award for his film about the siege of Sarajevo.

Emotional
Belvedere is the ironic name for the refugee camp set up for survivors who wait for news of their murdered loved ones. Forensic experts have been working for years, using DNA technology in an effort to identify the remains found in mass graves.

“It is a hard-hitting emotional film,” says a member of the audience at the première, which was attended by a few hundred people. “It is important that this kind of film is made, so that we never forget what happened in Srebrenica.”

Filmmaker Ahmed Imamovic sees his latest work first and foremost as a cry for justice. “It is an outrage that war criminals such as General Ratko Mladic, who have this genocide on their conscience, are still free men. It is only when monsters like that are behind bars that the survivors can truly begin to grieve.”

• Listen: what a viewer thinks of Belvedere