After the War took around 9 months of research and shooting in the mountains of Kosovo, and another 3 months of postproduction. It is, at present, the only documentary film ever made with the Slavic-Muslim Gorani community in Kosovo, who have been caught between the two opposing sides in the Kosovo War, and whose voice hasn't been heard much since.
Credits:
Director, camera: Srđan Keča
Producers: Srđan Keča and David Solomon
Production company: Atelier Varan Belgrade
Synopsis
In the heart of the Balkans live the Gorani, a small Islamic people of Slavic origin. What had kept them together and protected for centuries was their home, Gora, high up in the beautiful mountains of southern Kosovo, between today’s borders with Macedonia and Albania.
The Kosovo War of 1999 brought unrest into these fable-like parts. The Gorani, who had mainly supported the Serbian side, are now left alone, surrounded by an Albanian majority and their own dark memories of the war. When it becomes too hard to live under this cloud of death, many leave Gora forever, searching for a new life.
Through this elegy we are guided by a few of the remaining inhabitants of a Gorani village close to the Albanian border: two merry old ladies; the boy Sheap and his uncle Sultan; the shopkeeper; the muezzin, and the disobedient cows who wander through the village on their own. It is only a question of time when the silent but ruthless winds will carry them away, like they have so many others.
Review by Ron Holloway in Kino Magazine:
Shot in southern Kosovo in the mountains above Prizren, the documentary took months to complete and was completed only after repeated visits had been made to mountain villagers to win their confidence. In an isolated corner of Kosovo live an Islamic minority of Slavic origin, the Gorani, a people without a country of their own. What had kept them together and protected them for centuries was their homeland, the Gora mountains of southern Kosovo, located today along the borders to Serbia, Macedonia, and Albania. Unfortunately for the Gorani, Muslim in religion, they chose to fight mostly on the side of the Serbs in order to avert an onslaught by Serb police units. Today, surrounded by the Albanian majority, the Gorani are faced with the alternative of emigration – or reintegration, provided those dark memories of the Kosovo War can be forgotten. To Srdjan Keca’s credit, he documents the uncertainty of a people’s predicament without taking sides.
