FILM

“Initially, this film was commissioned by Arte. The idea was to return to Sarajevo with Sada, a Bosnian woman who had spent the war in exile in Paris. As the work progressed, I realized that it was not that simple. That war had escaped me a bit, I was interested in how it could be done from Paris. It was a week after the Dayton Accords and the situation was definitely not stabilized, Sarajevo was still surrounded by the Serbs. At the same time, I’m not predisposed to be a war reporter, it’s not my story, this kind of fear does not excite me. We took one of the first busses that went back to Sarajevo and the trip was incredible. We crossed completely devastated landscapes: 300 kms of ruins between Split to and Sarajevo; a trip of countless hours through a piece of history that was absolutely shattered. We were arrested and controlled all the time, without any idea by whom. I’d never been physically in a war landscape. The film was an incredibly strong experience because it faced me with a certain responsibility, a commitment. If I had not been affronted with all these questions, with my own story and my relationship to history, perhaps I would have never embarked on a feature film. In that respect, this film seemed decisive. “(PG)