Film Review: “Returning Home: Revival of a Bosnian Village” Tone Bringa (Producer, Anthropologist) with Peter Loizos (Consultant)

© 2003 Elissa Helms All Rights Reserved The copyright for individual articles in both the print and online version of the Anthropology of East Europe Review is retained by the individual authors. They reserve all rights other than those stated here. Please contact the managing editor for details on contacting these authors. Permission is granted for reproducing these articles for scholarly and classroom use as long as only the cost of reproduction is charged to the students. Commercial reproduction of these articles requires the permission of the authors. Tone Bringa’s “Returning Home: Revival of a Bosnian Village” chronicles the return of several Muslim (Bosniac) families to their homes in the once ethnically mixed village in Central Bosnia from which they were expelled in 1993 during the Bosnian war. This is also the village where Bringa conducted 15 months of field research in the late 1980's (Bringa 1995). The film is a sequel to the 1993 Granada Television production, “We Are All Neighbors,” an excellent, though chilling account of the breakdown of neighborly relations and friendships between Muslims (Bosniacs) and Catholics (Croats) in the village as fighting between Croat HVO forces and the (Muslimdominated) Bosnian Army moves closer and the Muslims are eventually expelled. In three visits from 1999-2001, “Returning Home” chronicles the process of return through the experiences of Muslim returnees and some of the Croats displaced by Muslim forces who have taken temporary refuge in the Muslims’ houses. Nusreta, the wife of the couple Bringa followed in the first film, reappears. She is unusually fortunate in that she has been working and saving money to supplement the rebuilding of her house by a foreign aid agency. The case of Tifija, an older woman from the village, illustrates the lot of most displaced persons (DPs) who are barely making ends meet and whose houses are not initially designated for reconstruction by the aid agencies. As we follow the would-be returnees, some of the enormous complexities and problems of refugee return come into focus. We see how each return is linked to the fate of a chain of other families; for one family to reclaim its house or flat, another must relinquish it, assuming the house of the second family is not being occupied by someone else or was not totally destroyed. The role of foreign aid agencies in rebuilding houses is presented as a blessing for those whose homes are rebuilt but a source of frustration for those denied such aid. Unfortunately, however, no representatives of the aid agencies are interviewed, nor do we see them interacting with any of their would-be beneficiaries. This aspect is thus left insufficiently explored, as is the larger role of the international community in setting policy and influencing (or not) return in post-war Bosnia. The main thrust of the film is to highlight the bonds of solidarity that have grown up between Muslim returnees and the Croat DPs staying in the village awaiting the reconstruction of their own houses. Although each group has reason to distrust members of the other group, these women express solidarity with each other on the basis of their common experiences as victims of ethnic cleansing. These bonds are reinforced through coffee hospitality and expressions of good will through the stressing of common values that transcend religious (read: ethnic) differences.