Silence of Reason
Forensic video essay built as a performative research into the first international criminal tribunal case to enter convictions for rape as a form of torture and for sexual enslavement as crime against humanity.While working solely with visual archive and testimonies, The Silence of Reason acts as a memory itself: elusive, fluid, it rejects framing, moving in all directions, spatial and temporal. The singular experiences of violence and torture by women from the Foča rape camps during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina become our collective memories, surpassing time and space.
Forensic video essay built as a performative research into the first international criminal tribunal case to enter convictions for war rape as a form of torture and for war sexual enslavement as crime against humanity. Built solely from forensic visual archive and testimonies, Silence of Reason acts as a memory itself: elusive, fluid, rejecting framing, moving in all directions, spatial and temporal. The singular experiences of violence and torture to women from the Foča rape camps during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina become our own collective memories, surpassing time and space.
Regie
Kumjana Novakova is a research-based filmmaker working also as a film curator and lecturer. Born in Yugoslavia, Kumjana’s background is in social sciences. She currently lives between Sarajevo and Skopje. She is the co-founder, chief curator and director of the Pravo Ljudski Film Festival in Sarajevo and led the Film Department of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje from 2018 to 2021. Her work spans cinema and contemporary video art, exploring identity, memory, and the collective self. Her film DISTURBED EARTH was shortlisted for the Academy Awards and was screened on our international competition 2023. She is an associate professor in the Master of Film program at the Netherlands Film Academy and is pursuing a PhD in Contemporary Arts and Media in Belgrade.