QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM SARAJEVO

Thirty-eight-year-old Dino Hodić grew up in Switzerland after his family left his native Bosnia, shortly after the War broke out. Originally born in Zvornik, a city roughly 50km from Srebrenica, the director’s memories of the conflict are fuzzy. He recalls the loud explosions and the endless road travel, however he is unable to piece a narrative together on his own. So he returns to the land that witness the largest genocide of Europe since WW2: the Chetniks (the Serbian nationalist army) killed more than 8,000 people between July 11th and 31st 1995.

The film begins with an Italian voicoever, as Dino narrates the movie in his mother togue. We see images of his happy and yet very distant early childhood interspersed with archive footage of Bosniaks (ethnic Bosnians adhering mostly to Muslim faith) fleeing the areas of Republika Srpska occupied by the Serbs. They were walking towards the UN-controlled, “safe area” of Srebrenica. The city was packed with people facing starvation and persecution, many sleeping rough under just abut any structure that would cover their heads. It is impossible not to think of present-day images of Gaza, except that in this case most buildings were standing still. An inevitable comparison requiring no further explanation.

The Chetniks eventually invaded Srebrenica and forced Bosniak men and male adolescents to board buses. Some accurately suspected that they would be summarily executed. Women and children under 12 were spared, instead taken to nearest safe zone (yet another difference to the Genocide of Gaza, where the vast majority of victims are indeed women and children). Present-day images of the Srebrenica memorial are combined with images of the past in order to create an inescapable spacetime continuum.

During the final two thirds of this 75-minute film, the filmmaker shifts his attention entirely to a middle-aged man called Hasan. His story became remarkable because he carried the lifeless body of his brother Hasib for 25km all the way to the free zone of Tuzla in order to give him a decent burial. His voice still breaks with pain as he recalls the details of his five-day journey through the dense forest that he decided to take in order to dodge almost certain death in the hands of the genocidal occupiers. Every step of the way was filled with fears of bullets of a landmine. Men and boys perished right in front of his eyes. About 20 corpses lay in front of the goalposts of a small football field.

A child approaches Hasan’s group in order to inform them that he saw several corpses, including Hasan’s younger brother Hajro. Hasan walks to said spot and identifies the body of his sibling. He places a few leaves on his relative and leaves. Later he encounter his middle brother Hasib. he describes the feeling of the reunion as overwhelming happiness. The following day, Hasib is seriously wounded. He dies in Hasan’s arms, parts of his face and viscera blown off. He asks Hasan to tell their mother that he was “strong” and “did not suffer at all”. Unable to say farewell to yet another brother in the woods, Hasan decides to pull Hasib’s corpse through the florest for the rest of the journey.

However emotional, Hasan remains precise and eloquent as he recalls the shocking details of the ordeal. He describes the day his second brother died as the most difficult one in his life. Director Dino Hodić gets close and intimate with his subject, however remaining respectfully behind the camera, and avoiding exploitative antics. In fact, Hasan expresses gratitude for the making of the documentary, which he perceives as a gesture of empathy and solidarity.

The images of Hasan walking the streets of present-day Srebrenica (he still fears bullets 30 years later) and also the woods that offered him a path to survival are intertwined with abundant archive footage from 1995. The moment Hasan arrived in Tuzla with Hasib’s dead body was broadcast on live television. The movie possesses only one easily recognisable reenactment: a young boy wearing a sparkling clean red tracksuit helping to drive others to safety. The option to show almost exclusively real images makes No One Will Hurt You a palpably real movie.

No One Will Hurt You is a historical register, a compassion movie and – perhaps unwittingly – a silent call to action. It is vital that history should not repeat itself, and it is a universal tragedy that Israel continues to starve, murder and terrorise Palestinians as I write this. If on one hand human compassion has powerful healing properties, on the other hand human depravity has no bottom.

No One Will Hurt You just premiered at the 31st edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. This isn’t the only documentary at the event commemorating 30 years of the Genocide: Davorin Sekulić’s The Family tells a similarly personal however less visceral story.