FAQ about “Mostar United”

Why did you decide to shoot this movie, any previous experience with BiH subjects?

• “Mostar United” is my second film in BiH and I consider it a sort of sequel of my previous one “Private fragments of Bosnia”. Everything happened because of my best friend, Svjetlana, a girl from Mostar who escaped when the war broke out and spent a couple of months in Italy, near my village, where we have met because of common friends. Now she’s in the USA with her husband. Since ’92 we had been talking about her eventual coming back home. She used to tell me wonderful stories about pre-war Mostar and I totally fell in love with her town. I finally decided to go and visit it. Nothing to do with what I imagined from her stories. Streets were empty and ruins were everywhere. There was an atmosphere of nothingness. I went many times, with my camera and shot a 12 hours of footage. I visited her family and all the places she used to love and mention in her stories. I made a film out of that footage, “Private fragments of Bosnia”. It was not meant to be a film for a distribution or festivals. It was a personal project for family purposes. I only wanted to convince her to visit home and overcome her fears. She actually went back for visiting the family, but the city she walked through was a completely different one. Not because of the ruins and the new street names, but because of that feeling of togetherness and joy that was gone. I couldn’t believe the beautiful town I had fallen in love with, because of her tales, was gone forever. Something had to be still there. I wanted to make a film about old Mostar and its values, its atmospheres, in order to understand if that past could come back or be an inspiration for the future. This is how “Mostar United” was born.

How come you decided to use the ‘sports’ as a backbone for a story about people and nationalism in the post-war Balkans?

• When I told to my friend Svjetlana that I wanted to make a film about what was left of the “old” Mostar, united and anti-nationalist, I asked her where to search. She suggested me to check what was left of Velez, the city football team, a symbol of Mostar anti-nationalism since 1922. Of course, being far for so long, she didn’t know anything about what was happened to the team after the war broke out. “Mostar in my heart, Velez until the grave”, she quoted the motto.  Searching on Internet, I realized that the football story of Mostar was a metaphor of the history of the town. Before the war one team, FK Velez, was representing the whole town. In ’92 the Croatian Sport Klub Zrinijski was refunded and since then the town is like under siege during the city derbies. The football environment reflects the divisions of Mostar’s community, but also the attempt to reunite it. On the youth level, both teams are working hard to get the kids to know each other. Football has become the backbone of the film because it allowed me to face both the good and the bad of the post-war situation. I choose football and I turned the film into a father-son story also because I didn’t want to make a film about politics, even if I am aware that everything we do is a political choice. I wanted to keep the conflict on an emotional level, without political statements, analysis or judgment. I was trying to tell a story that could express the feelings of a community of survivors. Once I was told: “If you are looking for the heart of a Bosnian, look on a football field”.  This is what I did.

Is it the fact that people now have different uniforms to continue the war with different means –the ‘sports uniforms’ replaced ‘army uniforms’…?

• The insanity that happens in Mostar during the derbies happens everywhere, also in Italy. Of course our recent history is different, but in Rome or in Milano or in Catania there are a lot of people who think they have good reasons to hate and beat “the others”. There are wars everywhere people don’t accept to be different and live on the same ground. On the terraces amongst thousands people it’s easy to behave like an enraged beast, accusing “the others” to be the cause of our problems. Propaganda always counts on this. These people don’t love sport, they don’t even watch the match and it’s not a “sport uniform” what they wear, they are just enraged and racist persons searching for a big audience.

How long did you shoot it, what was the process, how did you contact all the main ‘characters’, find the story, how long dig you live in Mostar…?

• After my friend suggested me to search in the Velez environment, I surfed the net to find information. I met a very smart young student in cinema living in Norway since ’92 but deeply Mostarian, Nenad Orucevic, Neso. At the beginning he was helping me with information, then he became my assistant.  He was a member of “Red Army”, the supporters of Velez. Many times Neso and I have met in Mostar looking for the characters. The FK Velez was very happy about my idea and they were friendly and open to me, even though accepting to be always followed by a camera was another story. They also didn’t know me. Neso did a great job and convinced the community and his friends to trust me. Mensud, who was an excellent candidate because of his engagement with kids, his job as a Manager of Tourism and his strong belief in anti-nationalism, was really brave and accepted to have a crew always behind his back and in his private life. “I have nothing to hide” he used to say “and nothing to envy to Mel Gibson!”, so he was a great character and a generous and good friend. At that point I had the character, a plot but I didn’t have a crew, yet. In 2004, during a documentary forum I met Petra Seliskar, who later became the Slovenian co-producer of Mostar United, and her boyfriend Brand Ferro, an award winning and experienced Makedonian cinematographer who loved the project and was happy to jump in. It was the beginning of a great friendship. From 2004, every year, twice a year, we used to spend 10-15 days in Mostar to shoot. During the research I had an idea of when things could happen and Neso, my assistant, who went back to live in Mostar, used to keep me informed about the situation. From 2004 to 2008 we shot 100 hours of tapes, attended 7 derbies (youth and main teams), drank a huge amount of beers but above all we spent 4 years with people that I consider part of my family, now. The boundaries between work and life were totally erased. While the years were passing by, Mensud’s son, Dzenan, was growing up and he was becoming a mature young man with his own idea about the world. The story became a father-son story and reflected the conflict between old and new generations, their values and different expectations. After losing his “old” beloved Mostar, Mensud was teaching an army of kids how to rebuild it, even if what they saw in football was not the chance to rebuilt values but to leave the Country. Once again the father might face a loss once again.  “Should I stay or should I go” is a stereotype in the Balkan post-war literature and cinema and in young minds living in Countries where there are not many opportunities. Italy is not much different.  I think, all together, we have spent about 5 months in Mostar and 5 years constantly thinking of Mostar and feeding my precious friendship with Neso, Mensud’s family and other friends. Now that I haven’t much time to go there, I miss it. I miss the peaceful and lazy atmosphere in old town, the perfumes, the colors. I have learned a lot about human relationships in Mostar and also about time. Time for friends is precious. Kairos wins over Kronos.

Were you ever in other ex-war zones?

• During the making of my first film “Private fragments of Bosnia” I have traveled all around Bosnia and Herzegovina and did some stupid things like walking on a mine land in Srpska Republic. I went several times to Sarajevo, to Knin, Banja Luka and traveled through many villages but I was never able to have a personal relationship with people. I am not attracted by “war tourism”, by ruins and butted walls. The war is over. I am interested in people, how to build a better future here or in Bosnia or anywhere in the world.

What were the reactions during and after the premiere of the movie in Mostar? Any problems?

• The premiere in Mostar was very exciting, touching and intense. I was very nervous and I couldn’t imagine how they would react. In 5 years you can learn a lot of things but you can’t become a domestic, so I was afraid that the film could unconsciously hurt somebody. My friends from Mostar were optimistic, but I was worried anyway. The Club of Veterans was turned for the event into an open air cinema: 200 seats, 2 bars, the fridges full of beers, the nearby Neretva refreshing the hot atmosphere. 500 people attended the screening during a wonderful Mostarian summer night. I felt a strong sense of belonging. My friend Svjetlana came from LA to join me and it was our first time together in her town.  It was like sitting in somebody’s living room watching a family movie. People laughed or were silent, but they just didn’t miss one frame. It was immense beauty what I was experiencing. The warm applause at the end was followed by murmurs. «How come is Velez winning only one match?!». We actually feared much more critical reviews from the audience, but Mostarians liked the film and the next day Mensud received many compliments from people. His friends were very proud of him. I was incredibly happy. Dzenan was happy, too, except that now everybody was calling him “Brad Pitt”. After the screening we celebrated with beers and grilled Blizva. I will never forget that night.

Did you screen it on ‘both sides’ of the city?

• The Mostar Premiere was in Old town and was organized by Red Army, the supporters of Velez.

In the beginning the coach say to the kids: “you’re not a normal generation” – I guess that was one of the premises, you can’t be “normal” after the war… do you see any hope for generation raised by hate?

• In that scene, Mensud was disappointed because the kids were not close to each other and didn’t behave like friends on the field. For him normality means to feel part of the community and help your friends even if this means to risk your own life. What is not normal in this generation, in Mensud’s opinion, is the lack of sense of friendship and of belonging to each other, which can be for sure an effect of war traumas, but that I can see also in youngsters in my Country.  History of the XX Century has taught us that social and ethical achievements of our societies are not granted to stay forever. It’s an everyday battle for rights, equality, respect what we have to fight for. If we don’t engage to improve our societies and lead them to social peace, what is life worth of? So, my answer is “Yes”, there is hope for kids of Mostar and it’s in their hands.

I guess some Croatian (especially Bosnian-Croatians) viewers would call this documentary pretty one sided… your comment?

• Many Bosnian-Croatians watched the film and they liked it. They reflected themselves in Mensud’s fight. Even the newspaper of the “Croatian side” of Mostar wrote a kind review about the film. I am on the side of people who fight against nationalism or fascism in Mostar, like in Spain or Italy or Niger or Germany. I don’t consider Mostar divided between Bosniaks and Croatians, but between anti-nationalists and nationalists and they can be Bosniaks or Croatians or Serbians. Franjo, a Bosnian-croatian, a trainer of Zrinjski speaks clearly in the film about helping the kids to get to know each other to become friends. He’s a wise man, well respected all over the town and he works with Mensud to erase conflicts. If the “one side” of the question is “being anti-racist and anti-nationalist” my answer is “yes”, the film is one-sided. But when it comes to nationalities, I am not on “one” side. I have friends from any of them and nationality means nothing to me. Religion even less.

Why didn’t you choose also a Croatian character and shoot also in the Croatian side, to make the film more objective?

•  When I got the idea of this film, I didn’t want to tell “my” truth about Mostar.  I was not interested in a political analysis or a reportage. In both “sides” there are people who dream of old unity. I wanted to tell a story about what was left of the old Mostar and how it could effect present and future. Velez had fascinated me. Its ancient glory and nowadays troubles were very symbolic. My main characters are a father and a son and I followed them in their everyday life. There was no dramaturgical reason to interview people in the streets to make a “politically correct” film that could be perceived as “objective”. This was not that kind of film.