Back to Bosnia - A documentary film by Sabina Vajraca
When
I left my hometown of Banja Luka, Bosnia, in spring of 1992,
I believed I was coming back that fall. None of us believed
that the war could last longer than that. Not in Bosnia, where
there were so many mixed marriages, so many kids who didn’t
belong to either religion. I did not say goodbye to my friends,
or to my city. I left believing I was coming back.
Eleven years later, in December of 2003, I faced my city again.
I found myself walking through it, looking at the people, at
the buildings, in utter shock. The city I remembered, the city
I called my own, was no longer there. It was dead and rotting
away. And it no longer remembered me.
The experience was so intense, that no words were sufficient
enough to describe it. It was powerful and sad and angry, and
it made me start asking questions: What actually happened in
Banja Luka? What happened to the people? If my reunion with
the past was so intense, how was it for others? Did they feel
the same?
\When
my father said that he needed to go to Banja Luka last summer
I knew I had to go with him. It was to be his first trip back
since he left in 1995 and I saw it as a perfect opportunity
to answer some of my questions. Furthermore, the three years
of his life in occupied Banja Luka during the war had remained
a mystery all these years. When he finally came to America,
he said that the past was not to be talked about. The only way
to survive in this new life was to forget the old. And back
then we were all happy to oblige.
In addition to my parents and myself, I took a small film crew,
to document this unique and highly emotional event. We spent
two weeks talking to people who were left behind, visiting sites
of ruined mosques, concentration camps, and unknown graves,
and trying to reconnect to the city that we once called our
own.
My
intent was to make a film about my father and his experience
of going back. Once we got there, I realized that it was much,
much more.
Back to Bosnia is a story of many families, seen through the
eyes of one. It is the story of one city, its citizens and everything
they went through to save it. It is the story of love, sacrifice,
and the ultimate choice to let go.
All images ©Sabina Vajraca
