The Man who could not remain silent (Nebojsa Slijepcevic) Croatia, France |

The Man who could not remain silent
Nebojsa Slijepcevic
Croatia, France, Bulgaria, Slovenia. 2024. 14 min

February 27, 1993, Strpci, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A passenger train from Belgrade to Bar is stopped by paramilitary forces in an ethnic cleansing operation. As they haul off innocent civilians, only one man out of 500 passengers dares to stand up to them. This is the true story of a man who could not remain silent.

NEBOJSA SLIJEPCEVIC

Nebojša Slijepčević was born in 1973 in Zagreb, Croatia. He graduated in Film Directing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. His documentary feature Srbenka (2018) was shortlisted for European Film Awards and won numerous awards at international film festivals, among them the Heart of Sarajevo Award as well as the Audience Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival, and a special mention of the Buyens- Chagoll jury at Visions du Réel 2018. His feature documentary Gangster of Love (2013) won the Audience Award at Zagreb Dox and premiered internationally at Hot Docs and Karlovy Vary. It was one of the biggest box office hits in Croatia.
Nebojša directed numerous tv documentaries, series, and short films. He teaches at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb.

DIRECTOR,S NOTE

The film is based on a horrific crime committed in Bosnia 30 years ago. There are three sides to every crime: the perpetrators, the victims, and the witnesses. I was particularly interested in the third group. We approached the film as if it were happening today, and as if this situation was happening to us, here. It’s easy to imagine that the passengers on the train are someone else, but they could easily be us, and in a way – they are. Acts of violence take place around us daily. Locally, it’s not as extreme as during the war in former Yugoslavia, but globally – it is even more extreme. And each of us is faced with the question posed by the film’s protagonist: should we stand up to violence even if we are not its immediate target?