Mourning in Silence: The War Trauma of Kosovo’s Women and the Politics of Memory in 'Zana' (dir. Antoneta Kastrati)

• In Event: Gender, Trauma, and Memory in Wartime: Perspectives from Romania, Kosovo, and the Soviet Union

Abstract

In this paper I try to examine Antoneta Kastrati’s Zana (2019) as a poignant exploration of trauma and the politics of memory in the aftermath of the Kosovo War. Through the story of a young mother who loses her only child in the conflict and succumbs to severe psychological turmoil—eventually dying at her daughter’s grave while pregnant—the film lays bare the devastating effects of unresolved grief, isolation, and the absence of meaningful therapeutic intervention. By analyzing the film’s narrative structure and symbolic imagery, I try to argue how collective amnesia and the elevation of war heroes marginalize the suffering of women survivors, rendering their trauma unspoken and unacknowledged. In doing so, in my analysis I try to challenge dominant war narratives and call for a critical reassessment of whose pain is memorialized in post-war Kosovo.

Author

• Aristea Kola