Balkan Rhapsodies:78 by Jeff Daniel Silva
Run time: 57 minutes (2007)
Balkan Rhapsodies:78 is an episodic documentary in 78 parts that weaves together a mosaic of encounters, observations and reflections from Jeff’s travels through war-torn Serbia and Kosovo.  Mr. Silva was the first American allowed into Serbia after the NATO bombings in June of 1999, and the filming he did while there makes up the heart of the project.  Jeff returned back to the Balkans later again in 2000 and a final time in 2005 to complete the project. At the heart of the project, is an episodic yet integrated structure inspired by the free-form and emotionally infused musical rhapsodies of the 19th century that tend to feature a series of short non-linear compositions with a range of highly contrasted moods, colours and tonalities.  The rhapsodic structure in BR destabilizes linear time, highlighting the fragmentation of time, memory and history and its metaphoric implications of what became of the Former Yugoslavia.  Balkan Rhapsodies weaves together an array visual and sound fragments, moving between intimate observational footage, candid testimonials from survivors, humorous musical interludes, conversations with renowned American intellectuals Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, and appropriated TV and web footage.  The collection of detritus and shards of memories, evidence, and experiences builds to a melodic echo that resonates with the absurdity of the situation and reflects a political and social imperative beyond the conflicts in Yugoslavia into of our present day crises.  The war in Kosovo may be long behind us but the issues and residue of history is still very present.  The fact that Kosovo’s status to this day is being heatedly debated in the United Nations amidst a score of other new challenges from Iraq to Sudan serves as a vivid reminder that, as T.S. Eliot eloquently expresses:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
 
Aesthetic Treatment
Balkan Rhapsodies uses the particularity of those early transformative experiences in Serbia and Kosovo as a starting point to explore universal themes of conflict, trauma, nationalism, globalization, representing the “Other”, and the problem of memory. Inspired by rhapsodic literary and musical structure, BR embraces those fragmentary and open-ended musical principles to create a non-linear metonymic viewing experience.  BR builds a rhizome structure through the episodic assemblage of 78 discrete units, where connections and relationships between episodes build meaning over time through a process of internal quotations and linkages through inter-titles and juxtaposition.  Balkan Rhapsodies ruptures temporal linearity, creating a piece that explores time and memory both within the film and within the viewer, empowering the viewer to build meaning as the piece unfolds.  The rhapsodic structure of the film embraces ambiguity and fragmentation as an aesthetic device, inviting the viewer to create meaning through the space in between the images, as they bring their own cultural and historic experiences into the piece and respond and relate to the nuances of the relationships between filmmaker and subjects.
Back Story to Balkan Rhapsodies:
Balkan Rhapsodies as a project began rather unexpectedly and innocently, in 1999, while I was working as a video producer at MIT.   I was spending considerable time working with linguistic professor Noam Chomsky on several non-related projects for the institute and was inspired by his political commitment and commentary.  It was through our casual conversations and my continued exposure to Chomsky’s work where I finally became activated towards social responsibility.  During our work at MIT in March of 1999, by happenstance, the NATO bombings of Serbia and Kosovo began, which would end up lasting for 78 days.  Having no ethnic ties to the region and a very limited knowledge of Yugoslavia’s past I was mystified by the intense ethnic conflict that had arisen and the general lack of the American interests in US foreign policy and military activities.  My dialogues with Chomsky led me toward many more questions about what was really going on in Former Yugoslavia that were not being answered in the mainstream media, so I rather capriciously decided to go to see it with my own eyes.  I flew to Greece and after two weeks of pleading, negotiated my way into the country with the help of Yugoslav filmmaker Emir Kusturica and his producers at Komuna.  Emir’s producers wrote me a sponsorship letter that convinced the Milosovic regime that I was not a CIA spy.  From that point I flew to Budapest and then traveled by bus to Belgrade and was greeted as the first American to be allowed entry to Serbia after the American led bombings.
 
While in Serbia I was often first met with suspicion about my intentions, but I quickly gained the trust of many young people who took me into their lives.  I stayed in their homes and their dens, talking and drinking with them late into the nights.  Towards the end of my first journey I was also interviewed on Studio B’s National news program to discuss my opinions about what I saw in Serbia.  The intimacy of the relationships with the many people I encountered on my journey had a profound effect on me and although I didn’t know it at the time, that experience has continued to inform my creative and personal life.
 
Over the years I made a few more trips collecting testimonies and observations of life in Serbia and Kosovo without a clear understanding why I was doing it.  It was not until I had some distance from my experiences that I could see the material in a new way and I began reconstructing the material into theses episodic rhapsodies.
Click HERE for updated screening news
Balkan Rhapsodies: 78 Encounters, Observations and Afterthoughts on Serbia & Kosovo 
Selected Festivals and Screenings:
February 21, 2008          Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)- NY Documentary Fortnights -08 - US Premiere
December 12, 2007        DocHouse Brussels, Belgium
December 3, 2007          ForumDocBH, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
October 6, 2007             Valdivia International Film festival - Chile - Latin American Premiere
September 23, 2007       DokumentART Festival - Neubrandenburg, Germany- European Premiere
Credits:
Production
Director: Jeff Daniel Silva
Producer: Jeff Daniel Silva
Cinematographer: Jeff Daniel Silva
Additonal Camera: Alla Kovgan, Charles Jevremovic, Almira Zejnilagic
Editor: Jeff Daniel Silva
Sound Mix: Ernst Karel
 
Editing Consultants
Rebecca Baron
Gregg Bordowitz
Andrea Chignoli
Daniel Eisenberg
Jane Gillooly
Sharon Hayes
Saul Levine
Lana Lin
Lynne Sachs
Jason Simon
 
Cast/Interviews
Igor Basorovic
Noam Chomsky
Elizabeth Chung
Danka Kojadinovic
Beatrice LaCoste
Igor Milic
Ivan Nedeljkovic
Boris Popovic
Misa Radic
Mateja Radonovic
Zoran Ristovic
Vladan Stefanovic
Almira Zejnilagic
Howard Zinn
 
Financial Support
MIT Council for the Arts
Somerville Arts Council
 
Additional Support & Special Thanks

Michael Albert
Goran Alexic
Julia Ananina
Tarek Ani
Dejan Antic
Katarina Avramovic
Ilisa Barbash
Lisa Barca
Todd Bartel
Igor Basorovic
Dragan Bjelogrlic
Andrea Bowers
Romina Diaz Brarda
Maksa Catovic
Noam Chomsky
Susan Cohen
Moyra Davey
David Deitcher
Allan DeSouza
Dragan Djordjevic
Bob Doyle
Vesna Gosic
Wayne Hall
Robert Harris
Sharon Hayes
Andrija Ilic
Eungie Joo
Janet Kaplan
Ernst Karel
Kevin Kirwin
marko kocic
Danka Kojadinovic
Sergeant Ian Fitzgerald
John Gianvito
Aleksander Gubas
Charles Jevremovic
Alla Kovgan
Emir Kusturica
Miwon Kwon
Sowon Kwon
Beatrice LaCoste
Saul Levine
Lana Lin
Branka Lukic
Jessica Lutz
Alexander Lykourezos
Elia Machado
Ellen McMahon
Matt McMakin
Ana Miljacki
Mateja Miljacki
Dragan Milosovic
Michael Minelli
Ivan(a) Nedeljkovic
Bob Nesson
Nadya Nilina
Michael Oatman
Jelena Pavlovic
Vlada Petric
Andrea Ray
Humberto Ramirez
Antonio Riestra
Zoran Ristovic
Maria Roussi
Marie Shurkus
Arthur Silva
Janice Silva
Jeffrey Skoller
Vladan Stefanovic
Dragan Stokjkovic
Lucien Taylor
Patricia Thornley
Jasna & Vuk Vukovic
Faith Wilding

Organizational Thanks
Belgrade Zoo
DTV Group (Cambridge)
Komuna (Belgrade)
The Filmmakers Collaborative
Film Study Center - Harvard University
Marf Scakers
MIT Council for the Arts
Nea Ecologica
Somerville Arts Council
Television Studio B (Belgrade)
Vermont College of Fine Arts

 
 

 

 

 

 

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

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serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

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serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva

serbia kosovo documentary video film balkan Jeff Daniel Silva