Örecomm Open Seminar 9. februar
When: Saturday 9 February, 12.00 – 15.00
Where: Radiostationen, Ö Varvsgatan 11 C, Malmö University, K3
The seminar will also be live streamed at: www.mah.se/comdev and http://orecomm.net
Videoletters
Mediating Reconciliation
By: Eric van den Broek and Katarina Rejger
The Dutch film-makers Eric van den Broek and Katarina Rejger had made several documentary films about the aftermath of the Balkan wars of the 1990's, when they embarked on an extraordinary project called "Videoletters, " designed to further reconciliation among people from the former Yugoslavia who had once been friends and who had been separated and even alienated by the bloody nationalist conflict.
The idea was simple: someone who had lost touch with, say, a childhood friend or a lifelong neighbour from a different ethnic group was invited to record a message. The directors then traced and showed the video letter to the "lost" friend, who was usually eager to reply. In most cases, the exchange resulted in an emotional reunion.
Rather than revisiting horrors, the project seeks to demonstrate that reconciliation is possible, starting with individuals for whom ethnic differences were unimportant - many former Yugoslavs are themselves of mixed extraction - until the conflicts convulsed their lives.
In each of the seven nations that were once Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia, TV stations have been broadcasted some of the video letters.
Eric van den Broek and Katarina Rejger have developed the multi media tool and applied it in Rwanda as well. They have received the Human Rights Nestor Almendros Prize for courage in filmmaking.
For registration to the seminar, please follow this link: http://orecomm.net/2013/orecomm-open-seminar-videoletters-mediating-reconciliation/