Screening Memories, Implicating Subjects: Articulations of Solidarity in Post-Yugoslav Memory Film

• In Event: Yugoslav Memories III: The Impact of Popular Cultural Memory Work in Post-Yugoslav Spaces

Abstract

At least since the 2016 launch of the Dealing with the Past section of the Sarajevo International Film Festival, many film festivals in the post-Yugoslav space have either been preoccupied with collective memory as an overarching topic, exhibit a preference for films that formally or thematically deal with the topic of memory, or position themselves as potential memory activists. This paper analyses recent post-Yugoslav “memory films” – a burgeoning and polyvalent category – as a direct outcome of the outlined memory turn in film festival politics in the post-Yugoslav region. Specifically, the paper demonstrates the ways in which films that highlight and interrogate the complexities of processes that contribute to collective remembrance and collective amnesias contribute to the formation of transnational networks of solidarity.

Author

• Natalija Majsova, U of Ljubljana (Slovenia)