Showcase | Giancarlo Bocchi in Sarajevo

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L’ASSEDIO. MILLE GIORNI A SARAJEVO
Regia | Director Giancarlo Bocchi
Fotografia | Photography Giancarlo Bocchi
Montaggio | Editing Giancarlo Bocchi, Jacopo Quadri, Roberto Missiroli
Produzione | Production IMP- International Media Production
Italia e Bosnia 1994-2015, 60’ bosniaco con sottotitoli in italiano | Bosnian with Italian subtitles

In April 1992, Hidajet, a fifty years old manager of a state company, atheist of a Muslim family and ardent admirer of dictator Tito, in the space of just a few hours found himself at the forefront of conflict. It was forced to fight in the trenches of Sarajevo against the “Chetniks”, the militia that emerged from the tombs of the story; they had killed his partisan father in 1942 before he was even born. Hidajet, even if he takes up arms, fought to not become accustomed to death and to not accept such an inexplicable war wrapped in a web of unspeakable interests.
Even his family was in the frontline, in the town. In a house under sniper and artillery fire, the mother Muniba, a former partisan of Tito, and his wife Gordena, from Serbia-Montenegro with Croatian and Italian grandparents, defended their ethnic roots and resisted the siege every day. With no light, no water and no food, they supported Hidajet and Nebojsa, Hidajet’s twenty year old son, who studied painting and sculpture at the Academy; and who used to spend three days a week between colours, brushes, canvases, sculptures and the other four fighting with a sniper rifle in his hands. Twenty years after original filming began, Hidajet and his family return to explain the siege. Muniba – now ninety-six years old – wishes to die without witnessing a fourth war in his life.
After retiring, Hidajet obtained a degree in literature and, in a collection of poems, wrote the following reflective prose: “We, the last of middle world. We, among the dead and the living.” Gordena remains patriotic for her country, now divided into several entities in the hands of war profiteers. Nebojsa is now an internationally known artist, but hit by a deep bitterness, claiming: “The war was lost by all equally. And we have not only lost the war, but we have lost the peace too.” Twenty springs have passed, but the fight is still following.

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DIARIO DI UN ASSEDIO
Regia | Director Giancarlo Bocchi
Fotografia | Photography Giancarlo Bocchi
Montaggio | Editing Jacopo Quadri
Produzione | Production IMP International Media Production
Italia e Bosnia, 1994-1996, 45’ italiano | Italian

Shot during the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, Diario di un Assedio (Diary of a Siege) collects unpublished testimonies of a dozen Italian journalists who have lived and told the story of the Sarajevo one thousand days. It is a “document” filmed by Giancarlo Bocchi, originally intended as research material on war reporting whilst preparing his feature film “Nemaproblema”. Twenty years after the end of the war, Diario di un Assedio illuminates the political, military and even human events held in the besieged city, delivering a valuable investigation for historical reconstruction. The emotional complexity and sensitivity of the issue is surmised by Ettore Mo (dean of the Italians war correspondents of that period) who, caught between personal narrative and testimony of a great tragedy, states: “I really love Sarajevo. I love its pain, I love its distress, I am taken …. because the pain is infinite, because the sorrow is infinite … they tried to destroy the soul of Sarajevo but they will never destroy the heart of Sarajevo …”
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GENTE DI SARAJEVO
Regia | Director Giancarlo Bocchi
Fotografia | Photography Giancarlo Bocchi
Montaggio | Editing Giancarlo Bocchi
Produzione | Production IMP- International Media Production
Italia e Bosnia 1994-2015, 60’ bosniaco con sottotitoli in italiano | Bosnian with Italian subtitles

Twenty years ago, on 18th March 1996, the siege of Sarajevo had finalised the last clauses of the Dayton Agreement. After untold sufferings lasting over a thousand days, the people of Sarajevo, silent and composed in their grief, returned that day to populate the streets of the city. Yet they did not indulge in demonstrations of joy, nor did they march in parades with official speeches, platoons of honour, soldiers ready to snap to attention, or parade new and old heroes to decorate with medals. Under a leaden sky, there was silence. Though the streets of the city were finally free, the citizens were amazed to be alive. Among these there were Mimo, Greta, Serif, Edo and other unknown samples of a fierce, formidable human resistance to barbarism forged of hunger, thirst and cold, a rain of grenades, massacres, fear and addiction to fear. The citizens of Gente di Sarajevo – helpless victims and brave fighters, offensive creatures and unarmed heroes – all united in the martyrdom of Sarajevo. Through harnessing the power of their speech, this film is a direct and sore testimony, which transcends traditional modes of documentary storytelling to provide a sensitive and apologetic insight into one of the immense tragedies of the last century.

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IL PONTE DI SARAJEVO
Regia | Director Giancarlo Bocchi
Fotografia | Photography Giancarlo Bocchi
Montaggio | Editing Giancarlo Bocchi
Produzione | Production IMP International Media Production
Italia e Bosnia, 1995-2015, 90 italiano | Italian

The Vrbanja bridge remains the symbolic place of the Bosnian tragedy. On April 5th, 1992, the longest siege in history started on this bridge in Sarajevo, and a year later fulfilled the fate of Moreno “Gabriele” Locatelli. On 3rd October 1993, four activists acting under the “Blessed are the peacemakers” movement aimed to break the siege of the city in a symbolic way by crossing the bridge whilst it was occupied by several opposing military forces. Despite being opposed to this suicidal event, Locatelli joined them to help any injured in the enterprise – which he considers a trap. Hit by a blast, he is abandoned by his companions, and was left alone, bleeding to death on the bridge. With his compassion towards even the weakest, even prevailing through Italy’s own hells of Corleone and Scampia, Locatelli was, in many ways, destined to be a hero.
Although seemingly minor against the backdrop of the cruellest and bloodiest conflict since World War II, this story reveals something else: a triangle of criminal interests that thrives on corruption and crime, surrounding and penetrating the current leaders of the Republic of Bosnia protected by an international curtain of hypocrisy and falsehood..