Sarajevo Roses film

During the four-year siege of the Bosnian capital city of Sarajevo, hundreds of thousands of bombs rained upon the city from the surrounding hills. Every shell exploding on a road or paved area left an imprint resembling that of a flower. Today, some of these craters remain, their 'petals' painted red and referred to as 'Sarajevo roses' by its citizens, like scars on the heart, a reminder of the innocent blood that was spilled on these streets.

SARAJEVO ROSES is the true story of Asim Haracic, a Bosnian-American doctor and musician. In this cinematic essay, he relates his life story and philosophy forged from a life of change and upheaval, growing up during the Tito-era communist Yugoslavia, starting a family and then having life shattered by war, surviving the siege of Sarajevo and then fleeing into exile to start a new life.

SYNOPSIS
As the longest siege of the 20th Century rages, the doctor, trained as a plastic surgeon, alternates daily shifts as an army medic on the frontlines of the besieged city and as an emergency room doctor at Kosevo hospital, using his skills to help wounded citizens of Sarajevo survive the daily shelling and sniper fire from the Bosnian Serbs. He finds himself in an existentialist nightmare of no hope for the future, where the meaning of life is defined simply as a struggle for day-to-day survival.

In 1995, the doctor sends his wife and their four-month-old son through the only escape route from Sarajevo. They crawl through an underground tunnel under the tarmac of the airport, ringed by the Bosnian Serb army. They then trudge on foot, at night, over heavily mined Mount Igman, the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics biathlon event. Finding sanctuary in the USA, they begin rebuilding their lives and eventually become US citizens.

Moving to near Washington, DC, the doctor begins composing songs and also putting to music some of the poems in a friends war journal, as part of his healing process from the emotional toll of war. Ironically, Dr. Asim Haracic, who retrained as a psychiatrist when he came to America, now counsels citizens of the Washington, DC area suffering from mental trauma resulting from violence and personal loss.

The most important aspect of SARAJEVO ROSES is that it offers an insight into how a beautiful, modern 20th century city that hosted the 1984 Winter Olympic Games, an event celebrating and showcasing the pinnacle of humanitys athletic achievement and brotherhood, could only eight years later become a symbol of the lowest of forms of mans depravity and brutality toward his neighbor. For generations to come these questions will be asked by scholars and historians. This film is a meditation on how the near dismantling of civilization as we know it can happen in a brief span of time when the right, or wrong, conditions are created. It also explores the concept of memory, both personal and collective, and how distorted history and memory can be passed down through generations and used to justify extremism and destroying the other.

SARAJEVO ROSES is the story one mans search for inner peace after the trauma of war, and a personal testimony to his descendants in the hope that they will come to understand that love and living fully in the present is the best thing we can hope for as human beings.

Filmmaker/photographer Roger M. Richards in 1992 began documenting the siege of Sarajevo during the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia. His work chronicled the entire war and the citys transition to peace over the span of 17 years. During the war his path crossed with Dr. Asim Haracic several times, but they never formally met until peacetime.

TECHNICAL NOTES: Sarajevo Roses is being filmed with an Aaton XTRPlus Super 16mm camera and a Beaulieu 4008 ZMII Super 8mm; older footage was shot with a Canon XL-1 MiniDV camera. The transfer of the Super 16mm Kodak Vision 3 500T 7219 footage to 1920x1080 Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) HD format for this teaser was done at Cinelicious cinelicious.tv in Los Angeles, California.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Sarajevo
• Kodak Vision 3 500T 7219
• Beaulieu
• Aaton
• cinematography
• Cinelicious
• Roger M. Richards
• war
• Bosnia
• Kodak film
• Yugoslavia
• Semezdin Mehmedinovic
• Asim Haracic

[DominoFaz]

Bosnian Muslims are still people, with a western culture like any other country in Europe (such as Germany, France, England, Poland.) I am one myself living in England and am constantly asked questions about why I am not like other muslims, I tell them I was brought up with a western culture in Europe, just like them.

So please do know your facts and not chat random bullshit and learn the difference between Asia and Europe...

[jasminsarajevo]

Komunistička,socijalistička ili demokratska, naša jugoslavija nije smijela dopustiti da se sve ovo desi,, tako da je sve to i nebitno.BiH i Sarajevo su jedino pravo ogledalo juge i nama je najviše žao što je nema, ali juga koju smo voljeli nestala je davno prije 1992 godine i zato se i raspala.

[ozzhead2066]

@Abdallah0822 you know islam is not a religon right?

[BringBackMy9Os]

muslim invaders&occupants plz go back to Arabia and live in peace there.

Leave Europeans alone. No more Akbar.

[MultiCockta]

@kajzar a jesi smjesan xDD ja pravoslavni turcin, pa koliko se sjecam bosanski kraljevi su bili srbi i pravoslavci kao i vi cak su se borili protiv turaka kao i vi dok ste bili pravoslavci odnosno srbi, i jos se jedna jedinica bosanskih vojnika borila protiv turaka 1389 na kosovu protiv turaka i de mi ti sad reci zasto bi se muslimani ili danasnji "bosnjaci" se borili protiv turaka ako nisu i sami srbi koji su dosli u pomoc svojoj braci srbijancima a koko ste nastali je jednostavno POTURCILI SE

[kajzar]

@MultiCockta Pa koja je republika ukinula autonomiju kosova, vojvodine, pravoslavni turcine ne seri previse :D

[erminization]

To those commenting on West vs East and the question of where Islam fits in Europe: Islam is not about cardinal points- it is the religion of God. Everything emanates from this first and foremost.

[MultiCockta]

@sennad91 pljujem po njemu balijo sta ste trazili to ste i dobili ali ste i platili za to krvlju to ti je cjena tzv "slobodne bosne" vala i neka ste

[MultiCockta]

@sennad91 pljujem po njemu balijo

[MultiCockta]

@jasminsarajevo raspala se zahvaljujuci vama i vasoj ideji o izdvajanju iz nje majmune usrani a da ste ostali u njoj znas kada bi se samo raspala NIKAD

[TheHolyDamage]

mah dad was in that war :O

[Abdallah0822]

long live islam in bosnia, and may God bring peace to the people tehre