The film "Araf" by our fellow Didem Pekün is screened as part of the Bosnian program at Eastern Neigbours Film Festival 2019 at Fimhuis Den Haag. 

In this program of five films, the focus is on the territory that was and still is very attractive for foreign filmmakers. Film directors – Turkish Didem Pekun, Italian Claudia Tosi, Croatian Ranko Paukovic – created quite intimate, poetic works that deal with dramatic strands of life in different parts of the country.

ARAF 
DIDEM PEKUN | 2018 | GREECE/TURKEY/BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Synopsis
A’raf – a Turkish word for limbo or purgatory – symbolises the borderland between heaven and hell for those who are, from incapacity, neither morally bad nor good, according to Qur’an. In this very special essayistic road movie, we follow a diary of Nayia, a ghostly character who travels between Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has been in exile since the war and returns for the memorial of the Srebrenica genocide. Her diary notes merge with the myth of Daedalus and Icarus – Icarus being the name given to the winner of a bridge-diving competition in her home country. This years-old tradition in Mostar appears as a central motif of the film. The carefully chosen visual style with black and white photography remarkably emphasises the emotional state and grief of people at the Srebrenica Memorial.

A poetic and haunting elegy of displacement shot in Bosnia by the Turkish director and film scholar. The film premiered at Berlinale and won the Human Rights Award at Sarajevo Film Festival.

When? Where?
6 – 10 November 2019
Filmhuis Den Haag
Spui 191
2511 BN Den Haag

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