‘Our emotions are natural, but they're also flexible’

Awareness of the past carries on even for generations born after the 1998-99 war in Kosovo.  Kosovars too young to have their own memories of the war still have conceptions of what happened, which have been formed by an array of societal, familial and personal dynamics. But how? Does film shape or affirm historical narratives and consciousness? Do the images and messages from these films influence how young Kosovars see and understand the war and the country’s recent history?

Research such as historian Jukka Kortti’s article “War, transgenerational memory and documentary film: mediated and institutional memory in historical culture” shows that film has the power to memorialize war and shape collective memory. Whether through documentaries or fictional films, narratives and images impact how history is understood.

In Kosovo, film has engaged with the war in numerous ways, cementing some narratives and challenging others. There has been a recent flurry of work by Kosovar filmmakers, hailed as a “new wave” of Kosovar film by Dokufest film festival. Some of these films deal directly with the war, or, more often, with how society has been shaped, impacted by or is still processing the past. These have tended to be less Hollywood blockbuster and more arthouse cinema, smaller-scale films, which have then been propelled into the international arena. 

In the last decade, films from Kosovo have been nominated for awards at Cannes, shortlisted for Academy Awards and won awards at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), Sundance Film Festival and Rotterdam film festival, to name a few. They cover topics such as struggling widows, clashes between generations in intergenerational households, young people forming a gang to escape the realities of their life in a small town, teenagers reshaping their identities and people leaving for university amid political turmoil. 

K2.0 asked five young Kosovars about how these recent films, and film more broadly, shape young people’s memory of the war. Their answers, given in both live conversations and over email, show a range of perspectives and insights. 

Some of the people K2.0 interviewed, like 27-year-old Shpat Ejupi, who is originally from Ferizaj, now live abroad. Others, like Diona Kursari, a 26-year-old from Gjakova, and 26-year-old Ismail Myrseli, who is from Prizren, work in Kosovo’s film and culture scene. Myrseli and his family spent the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina before returning to Kosovo in 2001. Finally, some, like Anđela Mirković, a 19-year-old art student from Gračanica and 23-year-old Arber Ramadani from Likoc, Skenderaj, who recently interned at the European Parliament, were born entirely after the war.  

The discussions with these five touched on topics ranging from how film can shape memory culture, new films being made in Kosovo and the impact of growing up surrounded by films from the U.S.. 

K2.0: How do you remember the war?

Diona Kusari: I was born in ‘97. What I know about the war is what my mother told me, my memories are secondhand. I don’t have any memory. I didn’t have any of these experiences. If I’m honest, I think, until I became 18, what happened during the war for me was completely irrelevant. My knowledge of this, or my understanding of why this is important, or what really happened, and how can I put the pieces together, came after I started my academic studies, after I moved to Prishtina, as well as meeting different types of actors, political or civil society in the Kosovo scene. And only then I think I could have some context, in a way, into confronting, asking my family members, what my personal history is.

Ismail Myrseli: I knew they bombed us, they killed us, but they were not part of our daily life…. It wasn’t so predominant in my childhood. I was interested in football, video games like Runescape and Fifa, maybe a child crush.

Andjela Mirković: I was born in 2005, so I don’t have direct personal memories of the war. Therefore, I remember war exclusively from the news, and all other media I consume along with the stories of my family and friends. From what I gathered, it seems a time when everything was uncertain and scary, and though I did not live through it, I’d say the impact of it is still very much felt today. It shapes how we see the world. For me, it’s more than just historical facts, it’s about the personal stories and the lingering effects on our communities. It serves as a reminder of the value of peace and the importance of cherishing it, if ever present. 

Shpat Ejupi: Truth be told, I even have trouble talking to my mother [about the war] because she has those traumas, and language just doesn’t do it. Some borders have been created. I don’t know why because I was very little. 

What do you think about films made about Kosovo and the war? How do these change or shape your idea of Kosovo and the war, if at all? Are there examples of when you felt that you understood something in the history of Kosovo or your own family when you were watching a film, or saw things differently? 

Arber Ramadani: [In the film “The Hero” (2014)], Arben Bajraktaraj plays a hero who actually was a warrior and who saved his co-villagers. But after the war, he can’t find a job to support his family, his children. His child is sick. You have people who climbed the ranks, who never fought a day in their lives. And a hero, he’s left without electricity, unable to care for his family. [It shows] the people who really fought, [that they] didn’t get the recognition that they deserved. The hero is the hero because he wasn’t corrupted. He stayed loyal to his ideals. I know a lot of people who really fought, and who lost family members, who lost their friends. And they didn’t get rich. Then you have some people who really managed to become wealthy after the war. 

You can find yourself, not myself, because I was born after the war, but your family stories, in most of them. In “Shok,” a Serbian soldier kills a young boy. Something similar happened in my village. Or maybe people who flee their home. This is something that happened to my family. Or in the movies “Father” and “The Hero,” there is the relationship of father and child. Because of the bad socioeconomic situation in Kosovo, my father had to move to Slovenia. So maybe that’s why I also like these two movies. I mean, they don’t portray anything in detail that is similar to my family, of course. And at the same time, maybe, there are a lot of things that you can find similar to your families.

Kusari: There is this impression that how we present ourselves in visual language in film has to do very much with how Kosovo’s narrative is the war. That’s our identity, in a way. That’s what our identity is built upon. 

The films showcase, in a way, effects of the trauma of the war. They also have this bleak, dire energy: we are here in this deep hole, because we suffered a lot and there is no real spice of life at the end of the tunnel. 

These films don’t really provide anything. They just provide this overhaul, this reappearance of our war traumas without any real ability to process and move forward. And it makes sense. Because I think we are there. A lot of people have been directly and indirectly affected in a way that has never really been recognized or validated, let alone received help, so maybe it is to say that these films are an accurate representation of how we are still tied to our past and how our present is moving along. It’s just us moving with our past. 

I am not aware of any films that provide space for imagination, empowerment and alternative realities. I think everything is just serving an affirmative function. This is what happened during the war. People are still plagued by anxiety and fear. I’m usually wary of critiquing that, because I understand maybe we are in a moment in time in which art needed to let that play out. Before we make something that has to deal with the future and the statehood of Kosovo, or the individuality of people, unperturbed by political conflicts and dogma.

It feels like most of the films have an affirmative function. It’s not like they deliberately provide a space for healing or empowerment, or an ability to imagine a different future. Movies can be used to twist and portray a history and install a narrative in people’s heads, that it’s completely one-sided. And based on judgment, and it’s trying to demonize and dehumanize a certain group of people

I’m not using it to say, this is how things are, we will never be leaving this state of being stuck and burdened by our emotions. I’m trying to say our emotions are natural, but they’re also flexible. They can be remolded. We can understand that we will not be held hostage by them for the rest of our lives. I don’t want to only speak about trauma for the rest of my life. But “The Hill Where Lionesses Roar” [which tells the story of teenage girls in Kosovo who form a gang to pass the time before they leave their small town to go to university] does not directly talk about war. It can be kind of refreshing to have this as a lesson. 

Mirković: Films about Kosovo and the war are important because they help share our story and keep our history alive. It’s vital that they do so accurately and respectfully, although it’s very rare that they do so, unfortunately. 

They have broadened my understanding by presenting diverse perspectives and providing powerful emotional context, but they also sometimes include propaganda that can distort the truth. They’ve shaped my view of the conflict and highlighted the complexities, though I remain cautious of the biases they may carry. They have shifted my perspective somewhat, but I’m not sure if they’ve changed my mental images entirely. They’ve offered new insights, but it’s hard to judge their full impact. Watching those films did give me a sense of understanding, but often I found them to be untruthful or one-sided. They sometimes highlighted certain aspects of history or family experiences while downplaying others, which made it challenging to get a clear, accurate picture. 

Ejupi: Those movies, people get educated through them. I think movies are better so as not to just leave the new or young generations to be bombarded by: “how was the war?” and whose fault it is, or if you should die for your country. If you feed people war narratives, and don’t feed them also literature and movies and knowledge… 

Kusari: There’s always room to question and be critical. Like when you say, “how do you get the images in your mind?” I think about this a lot. There were a lot of American films when I was a kid, and I feel like those images are still in my head. So it matters a lot to think about not just what am I seeing, but what message are they trying to instill in me?

Myrseli: We never had art education in primary school. All of the cultural artsy things I had in my life are from the British Council, Creative Europe, the U.S.. I remember when I was a kid staying in American Corner in Prizren. I went there because I wanted to read “Batman Begins” comics, and I never had any possibility to find them. And then I was reading in English because of this, and I knew another language. Of course, it also has its advantages and stuff like that, but at the same time, it has brainwashed society into thinking that there is no other option. You know, the other option is ourselves. 

How do you think young people in Kosovo and the diaspora think about Kosovo and the war? 

Ramadani: It’s different when you hear about a traumatic event and when you actually experience it. For a lot of people I know, they don’t like, for example, action movies, where there are gunshots. Because they have seen it, they have experienced it. People who were born in the West… they were taught about the war in Kosovo, they experience it through the stories, through the stories we can make sense of reality.

Kusari: I think our generation is not necessarily apologist, not people who try to put our pasts under the rug. Of course, if you meet a Serbian person, probably people from my generation are willing to have verbal arguments. It’s not the nicest thing, but at the same time, we feel: “ah, let’s get this over with, let’s think about the future because we have multiple trauma experiences.” I can also understand why the younger generation is slowly starting to lose interest in what happened during the war, because they just get these stories from other people. It does not really belong to them anymore. 

It’s like a relationship where you never really discuss with your partner what you want and then that person leaves, and you never really have any closure. It’s some type of gaslighting. So you’re left wondering and you’re left obsessing, you’re reliving your past. But if the person doesn’t want to talk to you, how are you going to make sense of what’s happened?

Mirković: Young people like me see Kosovo and the war in different ways. We’re influenced by family stories and our own experiences. Some of us focus on moving forward and rebuilding, while others still grapple with the pain and complexity of our past.

Ejupi: Whatever we have been told, at least my generation, it’s obvious that, if you take it as a tree, one big part of the branches was false. 

Have you seen some of the newer films coming out of Kosovo? What do you think?

Ejupi: I just have gratitude and respect for people who are doing this. It’s just amazing. You know, I’m living here in Ljubljana, where you might say people have better conditions to make movies, but they don’t, while in Prishtina, it seems that some people just out of their sheer will to heal themselves, or just by bringing themselves to the world, bring these great movies that can express very, very deep consciousness not only of one person, but of a whole nation. Through that, people can heal and also escape the whole narrative of “no you cannot do this, you cannot do that.” 

Myrseli: I think we are finally sort of, and this is a bit of an unpopular opinion, we finally broke free from this idea of: they came, we fight, we suffer.

Mirković: I haven’t seen many of the newer films from Kosovo because I’m skeptical about their accuracy. I often feel they don’t fully represent the truth, and can be biased, so I prefer to rely on other sources for understanding our history.

Kusari: I think those [newer] movies are being seen by the general public. There’s a lot of opportunities for alternative cinema with our screenings that are for free. Especially in terms of visually presenting our past, I think there is a lot of interest from the general public to see. 

The general vibe is that our movies show what we are and where we’re at, which is still consciously or unconsciously dealing with the effects of war and repression. I understand maybe we are in a moment in time, where we need to let that play out. Before we make something to deal with the future and of Kosovo, or the individuality of people. I’m not exactly the type who will make a movie speculating about the future and imagining a better alternative reality, I’m still trying to process what is here. But I actually do wish there was someone who would fill in these gaps.

I think it’s important for all of us to be able to hold the country’s contradictions.

This article has been edited for length and clarity. The conversation was conducted in English.

 

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