The University of Lincoln, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival (www.raifilm.org.uk), is hosting a screening of the ethnographic film “We are all Neighbours”.
The film exposes the gradual unrest and distrust between people whose ethnic differences were never previously seen as precursor for cultural segregation. This film will be of interest to anyone with a sociology, anthropology, law, history, philosophy or cultural studies background but also makes for a fantastic reflective piece where parallels can be drawn against our own recent political shifts.
The film will be screened in the Cargill Lecture Theatre, Minerva Building, on Thursday 2nd March from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.
This film was shot in a mixed village of Catholics and Muslims in the heart ofBosnia in the course of two visits made in 1993, at the height of the civil war in former Yugoslavia. Based on the fieldwork and close personal relationships of the Norwegian anthropologist Tone Bringa, it shows in sensitive but unflinching detail how neighbours who had been on friendly terms for decades become gradually estranged from one another as the warfare taking place elsewhere gradually comes closer. By the end of the first shoot in January 1993, fearing the worst, Muslim mothers had sent their children away to safe havens elsewhere while their husbands were mounting armed patrols at night. By the time the filmmakers returned in May 1993, most of the Muslim population had fled and their houses had been destroyed while the Catholic houses remained in pristine condition. In the interim, the Croatian army had taken control of the village, the Muslim population had resisted and armed conflict had broken out. Many murders had been committed, not only by the invading army, but also by the very neighbours who had previously lived in harmony with one another.
As Pat Caplan commented in a review of the film, although the series title ‘Disappearing World’ had sometimes been criticized, in this film, “we watch a world literally disappear before our eyes.”