Vukovar: The Final Cut
The Final Cut” is the name of the first Croat-Serb documentary film about the victims of Vukovar during the war, made in the style of BBC documentaries, with witnesses and participators from both sides giving accounts.
Working on the film were Croatian journalist Drago Hedl and Serbian director Janko Baljak, famous for the documentary film about Belgrade mobsters, “See You in the Obituary,” which was shown on HRT several years ago. The film was finished last week, and will receive its premier public showing at the Zagreb Documentary Film Festival.
“The best aspects of the film are that we are showing a bunch of never-before-seen material, which includes findings which our Serbian colleagues have been able to get from the archives of the former YNA and from Belgrade and Novi Sad television stations. There is also very valuable, rough television material, recorded right after the fall of Vukovar,” Hedl said.
Especially shocking is the footage of Vesna Bosanac, the legendary director of the Vukovar hospital, in a military vehicle looking for her mother around Vukovar after its occupation. Also, for the first time, footage will be shown of the talks between the YNA and the Croatian Military about the surrender of Mitince, as well as the sequence of events in October 1991, when the “hog” bomb, weighing 250 kilograms, went through the roof of the hospital and went all the way down to the basement where patients were being held, and thankfully, did not explode.
“This is the first film to show witness accounts from both sides. I must stress however that it does not put the blame on anyone nor does it try to create a balance of any kind, because it is very well-know why and what happened in Vukovar.” Hedl said.
The film is divided into three parts, which each last a total of 40 minutes. In the film, 70 protagonists of the period reconstruct the events occurring between the first elections of Croatia and the massive killing at the Ovcara farm in 1991, while the ending scene tells of Belgrade’s court process of uncovering these crimes, which ended last year.
