In The Shadow of War

Although the war in their homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina ended almost twenty years ago, many young people still suffer the consequences of a struggle they had no part in themselves. The film follows the lives of four teenagers, all trying in their own way to live with the legacy of war.                                  

The father of seventeen-year-old Magdalena is badly traumatised – he went to war when he was seventeen himself, and now he takes it out on his daughter. Ilija doesn’t know his father and was abandoned by his mother at birth. Elvis lost both parents – he self-mutilates and has attacks of rage that bring him into frequent contact with the police. Ante’s father was a violent war criminal – the Yugoslavia Tribunal sentenced him to twenty years in prison.

There are moments of strength and hope in each of their stories, but their loyalty to their absent parents and their yearning for the security of a normal family life means they are trapped in a cycle of despair and guilt. This film is a portrait of a lost generation.