In production. Completion December 2024. 90 Min
Script: Chiara Sambuchi
Director: Chiara Sambuchir
Camera: Paolo Pisacane
Music: Hannes Gill
Producer: Antje Boehmert
Executive Producer BSX: Hansjürgen Schmölzer
A production of DOCDAYS Productions GmbH in cooperation with BSX Schmölzer GmbH.
In possession of a rare VHS tape her father made during the Srebrenica genocide, a young woman embarks on a journey to unravel and understand the mysteries of her war-torn family.
There are four hours of film on the VHS cassette, which the shoemaker Sejfo shot between 1993 and 1995 in Srebrenica for his little daughter Alisa. It is the only film shot in the enclave.
In possession of this cassette, Alisa embarks on a journey back to Srebrenica. She will lighten the dark spot that Srebrenica has always been for her. Her questions are ones that our audience can easily relate to, like: What happened in the enclave?
During her journey, Alisa is confronted with images her father tried to protect her from. She now confronts the larger story of Srebrenica. An intimate search for the traces left by her father, the documentary is a cold investigation into how this genocide, which European countries stood by, came about.
THE SREBRENICA TAPE is a road trip linked to Sejfo’s film, which offers a unique interior view of the enclosed and now-vanished city of Srebrenica. As in a detective story, we will gradually put the puzzle together.
Encounters with Sejfo’s sister, his best friend or the man who was with Sejfo in the last hours before his death provide Alisa with further fragments of the story, the missing parts of a whole picture that will open before Alisa’s eyes at the end of her journey.
In our film, the image of Srebrenica is not formed by the reporting of journalists or the statements of perpetrators or UN troops, but by the residents of Srebrenica who were imprisoned between 1993 and 1995. And not in the retrospective – but in real time – recorded by Sejfo in his tape for Alisa.
In the film, Sejfo is silent about the cruelty of the conflict, revealing no detail that could shock Alisa. His “children’s film” will slowly dissolve into an authentic version of what happened in Srebrenica. As Alisa uncovers secrets from her family, she inevitably uncovers others of war and genocide as well.
And so the audience has the chance to witness this conflict in a new way.