SILENCE OF REASON

Regional selection | 18 Jun 2024 23:00 Njegošev park
Sjeverna Makedonija, Bosna i Hercegovina / 2023 / 63'

 

Forensic video essay built as a performative research into the first international criminal tribunal case to enter convictions for rape as a form of torture and for sexual enslavement as crime against humanity. While working solely with visual archive and testimonies, Silence of Reason acts as a memory itself: elusive, fluid, rejecting framing, and moving in all directions, both spatial and temporal. The singular experiences of violence and torture by women from the Foča rape camps during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina become our collective memories, surpassing time and space.
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Directed by: Kumjana Novakova
Written by: Kumjana Novakova
Editing: Jelena Maksimovic
Sound: Vladimir Zivkovic
Producer: Kumjana Novakova
Production: Medea
Co-production: Pravo Ljudski
Festivals and Awards: Sarajevo Film Festival: Human Rights Award (2023), IDFA: Best Directing Award (2023), Torino FF: Special Mention (2023), Belgrade Auteur FF: Best film (2023), Watch Docs FF (2023), MoMa Documentary Fortnight (2024)

About the author:

Kumjana Novakova is a research-based filmmaker working also as a film curator and lecturer.   Originally born in Yugoslavia, Kumjana has worked in the field of film and arts since 2006. Her formal education combines international relations, cultural and social research studies in Sofia, Sarajevo, Bologna and Amsterdam. In 2006 she co-founded the Pravo Ljudski Film Festival in Sarajevo, and acts as its chief curator. She was leading the Film Department of the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Skopje from 2018 to 2021. As an author, Kumjana explores the languages of cinema researching relationships related to power, war, memories and (un)belonging. She is interested in developing strategies of creating meaning from the position of filmmaking, and its potentialities as a territory of new collectivities. Her work has been shown and exhibited across the world. Her film Disturbed Earth (co-directed with G.C. Candi) has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards.