HGMV Talk by Maria Hofmann (GSD) "Recent Genocide Documentaries between Return and Respite of Trauma"

Wednesday, December 9, 4:00 PM 710 Social Sciences
MARIA HOFMANN, German, Scandinavian & Dutch (UMN)
"Recent Genocide Documentaries between Return and Respite of Trauma"

Recent Genoc ide Documentar ies between Return and Respite of Trauma Documentary film has undergone a development in the past 15 years that complicates the notions of fact and fiction in this genre. These ostensibly binary opposites have been discussed extensively in the 1970s and 80s. The scholarly work of historian Hayden White and the contributions of Eva Hohenberger and others in regard to documentary film have revealed that any kind of narrativization of events (including in historiography and other non-fictional genres) is a form of mediation that employs similar strategies as fiction. This exposed the claim of an objective or true history as an unattainable ideal and an unmediated representation of reality as impossible. Despite these academic realizations, documentary filmmakers continue to treat their films as purely non-fictional, clearly delineating themselves and their work from fiction. One reason for this continuous adherence to a more traditional definition is the danger of relativization, of ultimately undermining any truth claim when the difference between fact and fiction is completely dismissed. 

Recent documentary films, however, have started to embrace and welcome the similarities to fiction instead of forcefully denying their proximity. These films employ fictionalizations as their core strategy in order to address and reflect upon a media situation in which the medium itself has become precarious, and images have lost their immediate "evidentiary power" (Nichols). 

Eye on Africa: Will we only care about Burundi if it is called a genocide?

by Wahutu Siguru

A few things have been happening in Burundi this year. The president, Pierre Nkuruzinza circumvented the constitution and ran for a third term. The result of this has been on-going conflict from April. Burundi was not a surprise though. Journalists I spoke to earlier this year all stated that regional coverage of Burundi had pointed to something being afoot as early as last year. None-the-less, here we are, with yet another unfolding atrocity, several deaths, an ever growing numbers of displaced and plenty of hand-wringing by the international community.

There are reports of massive numbers of refugees already running to Rwanda in anticipation of violence at a massive scale. A Kenyan journalist I spoke to in March painted a really grim picture of politicians getting ready to cause havoc. These concerns have now been confirmed by reports emanating from Burundi. The police are engaging in a campaign of brutal suppression of protesters. Several dissenting voices have been thrown in jail accused with the ever nefarious charge of "endangering internal and external state security." Protesters have been charged, by the state prosecution, with the offence of "participation in an insurrectionary movement." Not to forget the continual assassinations and assassination attempts by both sides of this unfolding atrocity.

Despite all of this though what is happening in Burundi is not genocide nor is Burundi going to be another Rwanda. Sometimes it feels as though every atrocity in Africa is often seen as the next Rwanda. This does not mean that the government in Burundi is not heinous nor is it in any way excusable. Indeed in May, the International Criminal Court saw it necessary to warn the Burundi’s leaders of possible prosecution should the court deem it necessary. While the word genocide is emotive and seen as necessary whenever world opinion needs to be influenced, it complicates the situation on the ground as well. In Burundi, this complication is been based on how to define the perpetrators and victims; if it’s a genocide, who is the targeted group and who exactly is the perpetrator of said genocide?

Minneapolis Film Society Screens Pretty Village

By Erma Nezirevic

On Saturday, October 17th, 2015, the Minneapolis Film Society screened Pretty Village at St. Anthony Main theater, a documentary depicting the experience of Kemal Pevranic and his village during the war in Bosnia (1992-95). Pevranic, the main subject of the film, is also the producer and a human rights activist who works to raise awareness and to rebuild his community in Bosnia by working on reconciliation efforts, particularly with young people of all three ethnicities in Bosnia. The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies co-sponsored the film screening event, in which I participated as the moderator of the post-screening discussion.

Pretty Village is a powerful documentary centered on Pevranic’s home village of Kevljani located in Northern Bosnia in the municipality of Prijedor. The Muslim village became a target during the war by the surrounding Serb villages. Most of the men in the village were either killed or taken into the nearby Omarska concentration camp. Labeled an “investigation center,” Omarska was only revealed as a concentration camp by the media after serious denial on the part of the Serb forces. In the film, we see Pevranic return to Omarska to face the horrific memories, as well as his torturer, who just so happened to have been his high school teacher. In the scene where Kemal directly asks the teacher about the camp, we see a kind of denial on the part of the perpetrator that just makes us cringe as we watch the hypocrisy in the interaction. It makes us wonder if facing one’s torturer cannot bring closure, what can? As one of the village residents and torture victim states in the film, hating one’s torturers can also become a kind of torture in itself, as it is exhausting to hate someone with such intensity.