BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: GAY THEMED FILM "GO WEST" SPARKS CONTROVERSY AND DEATH THREATS

Record ID: 278177

  • Title: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: GAY THEMED FILM "GO WEST" SPARKS CONTROVERSY AND DEATH THREATS
  • Date: 9th April 2005
  • Summary: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (APRIL 8, 2005) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) SAMIR SMAJIC, PRODUCER OF THE MOVIE SAYING: "The main idea of the movie is to show that here in Balkans people are more likely to accept war criminals than homosexuals as normal people."
  • Embargoed: 24th April 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
  • Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Reuters ID: LVA9G63GSPBLKEDZOW4XXFVBOQCQ
  • Story Text: Go West is not an explicit film by western standards
    but its director has received death threats, religious
    groups have condemned it and those who have actually seen
    the film do not want to be identified for fear of attack.

    Go West, directed by Ahmed Imamovic, is set to be
    released in August at the Sarajevo Film Festival and
    possibly at Cannes. The film has sparked a furious debate
    about one of the great taboos of Bosnian society:
    homosexuality.

    In a small editing studio in the city producer Samir
    Smajic is busy putting the final touches on the film.

    "Even before it was released, this movie was condemned by
    certain
    people although none of them has seen
    the movie. We received
    various threats but we paid no attention to that. We hope
    that once they see the movie people will be proud of it,
    and proud that it has
    been made here in Sarajevo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina",
    he told Reuters.

    Observers say Go West breaks new ground in the Bosnian
    film industry. Most Bosnian films during the past few years
    have centred on the rights and wrongs of the 1992-95
    Bosnian war, and the role of the international community in
    it - like the Oscar-winning No Man's Land.

    But the new film goes one step further, using the war as
    a backdrop to address homosexuality.

    "The main idea of the movie is to show that here in
    Balkans people are more likely to accept war criminals than
    homosexuals as normal people", Smajic says.

    Go West tells the story of a gay male couple - one
    Muslim, one Serb - and their attempts to get out of Bosnia
    at the start of the war in 1992.

    It is not, by western standards, an explicit film. But in
    a society where religion, whether it be Islam, Serbian
    Orthodox or Catholicism, plays such a powerful role, the
    film has run into a storm of criticism.

    Ahmed Imamovic, who won the 2002 European Film Academy
    award for his short movie Ten Minutes, hopes his new film
    will get its premier at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

    But others in Bosnia hope it never sees the light of day.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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