There's Still Someone in the Woods

"When they explained my origin to me, I didn't know where Bosnia was or that there had been a war." Lejla Damon, is 26 years old. She was raised in a middle class family in London. Her parents are journalists and in the 1990's they covered the Bosnian war for SKY NEWS.

In December 1992, while filming in a Sarajevo hospital under shelling, a woman wanted to drown the baby she had just given birth to. The baby was born as a result of rape and seen in the mother's eyes as the seed of the enemy. This baby was Lejla Damon.For Alen, the war started years later, on the day he discovered he was adopted. His biological mother had abandoned him because he was the result of a rape by a Serbian soldier. Ajna is also a child born of war, but her mother decided to keep her despite the psychological problems she endured after being raped during the war.
For Meliha (Bosnian of Muslim origin), Nevenka (Bosnian from Croatian origin) and Milica (Bosnian from Serbian origin) the war is not over. All of them, as well as the other women in their families were victims of sexual violence caused by troops of different banners. This documentary shows the witnesses and their struggle to break the silence and overcome the stigma in a society that still suffers the consequences of war, 25 years later.

Original version subtitled in English available on FILMIN

Una producción de Cultura i Conflicte y Bonobo Films
Con el apoyo de Televisió de Catalunya para la versión doblada en catalán

Dirección
Teresa Turiera-Puigbò Bergadà
Erol Ileri Llordella

Realización
Erol Ileri Llordella

Guión e investigación 
Teresa Turiera-Puigbò Bergadà

Dirección de fotografía
Tyler Franta

Operadores de cámara
Tyler Franta
Erol Ileri Llordella

Dirección ejecutiva
Cultura i Conflicte

Producción ejecutiva
Bonobo Films

Producción ejecutiva TVC
Jordi Ambrós
Edición de contenidos TVC
Montse Armengou Martín
Producción Delegada TVC
Daniel Barea

Montaje
Tyler Franta
Bonobo Films

Grafismo y motion graphics
Magda Puig
Erol Ileri Llordella

Diseño sonoro
Pep Pascual Vilapua
Erol Ileri Llordella

Etalonatje y corrección de color
Tyler Franta

Imágenes de archivo 
Crónica Dan Damon 1992 (Sky News)
Tribunal Penal Internacional (UN IRMCT)
Naciones Unidas, (United Nations, New York)

IlustracionEs
Magda Puig Torres

EscenAs de ficcióN
Magda Puig Torres
Andreu MartÍnez Costa
Joan Arqué Solà
Rocafort Modelisme

Banda sonora original
Pep Pascual Vilapua
Erol Ileri Llordella

Voz
Nikolina Vujić

Doblaje y mezcla
Ignasi Miranda

Voces doblaje
Noelia Alba Montero
Magda Puig Torres
Erol Ileri Llordella
Marta Romagosa
Neus Bonet Bagant
Anna Maria Ricart Codina
Teresa Turiera-Puigbò
Oscar Muñoz Casamada

Traducciones
Simona Škrabec

Intérpretes en Bosnia y Hercegovina y Serbia:
Azra Džigal
Edin Huskic
Danijela Skrbo
Mihaela Šumić
KatarinaVitomirovic
Ivana Arula
Alma Omeragic
Asmira Džigal
Lejla Alađuz

Corrección lingüística
Susanna Cros Bahí

Agradecimientos

Fondacija lokalne demokartije (Fundació per a la Democràcia Local, Sarajevo)
Udruzenje Žene-Žrtve Rata (Associació de dones víctimes de la guerra, Sarajevo)
Zaboravljena djeca rata (Associació Nens oblidats de la guerra, Sarajevo)
Dan i Siam Damon
Eric Hauck
Jasmina Mujezinović
Nurfeta Arnautović
Amra Delić
Belma Becirbasić
Miguel Rodríguez Andrés
Refugi El Bagatell

Conel apoyo de:

The Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation

Diputació de Girona

Ajuntament de Barcelona

©Barcelona 2020

"There's Still Someone in the Woods" was filmed in different locations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia between March 2018 and January 2020.

The documentary has been awarded, among others, with:

Espillo Award 2022 for Best Ethnological Documentary 2022

"Mémoire de la Mediterranée" Award 2022 for Best Documentary, Marseille International Film Festival.

Best Documentary on Human Rights Award at the Montreal Independent Film Festival 2021

Best Feature Film Award at the TerraGollut Film Festival 2021

2021 Non-Sexist Communication Award from the ADPC (Association of Women Journalists of Catalonia)

In 2023, at an event held at the Parliament of Catalonia, the Catalan International Institute for Peace/ awarded the ICIP Peace Builders Award to the Associations “Women Victims of War in Bosnia and Herzegovina” and “Forgotten Children of War”.

Thank you Meliha, Nevenka, Milica, Alen, Lejla, Ajna for generously sharing your stories.

All the survivors who star in this project have been survivors of war and victims of peace, because today they still suffer institutional neglect and social stigma, in addition to the physical and psychological consequences. But not everything is dark. Some have stopped being afraid and continue to bring war criminals to justice. And the sons and daughters born as a result of rape, now in their thirties, are no longer the seeds of hatred that the aggressors intended to plant, but a sample of how love and the ability to overcome barbarism can heal.

The approach to the photographic installation by Oriol Casanovas Puigjané and the entire Culture and Conflict team consists of two distinct spaces:

The first, made with printed panels, takes us to Bosnia in the year 92 where rapes and torture were carried out in centers scattered throughout the territory. Through these panels we get to know each of the characters, who explain their reality from a personal perspective.

Symbolizing the anti-sniper barriers that the citizens from sarajevo installed at the crossroads of the city, the visitor is immersed in the second space: a spread of white and shabby sheets, among which are six large-format printed portraits. An emotional space that wants to pay tribute to all the "invisible" women and children who did not survive or have suffered the trauma of family, social and institutional silence.

Between 1992 and 1994, the Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic traveled to refugee camps to learn firsthand the experiences of women who had been victims of rape as a weapon of war. The novel “As if I am not there”, published by Abacus in 1999 resulted from the testimonies she obtained on these travels.

This work is the seed from where the theater project was born. First of all, we thought about making an adaptation but, after experiencing the reality on the ground, everything changed. After talking with these women, we had the need to explain it from a different perspective.

From the beginning, we asked ourselves: what were we doing in 1992? In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a war had broken out, fracturing a society and ruining many personal dreams, and in here, while Barcelona was holding the Olympics, we had the sensation that it was the beginning of a new era that would be much better than the previous one. That war upset us, of course, and many of us got involved in the protests and solidarity events that were organized, but it was a war that we knew only from the news and the number of casualties.

During the various trips to the area, we have met some of the survivors of that conflict and the children that were born from women who were raped. They often told us that they feel they have been forgotten by everybody. It is not easy for them to talk about what happened and relive such traumatic events but at the same time they want to be heard, and we can help them make their voices heard by a wider audience.

They are the protagonists of our work. And we... perhaps can only do what we should have done before...listen to them.

During the filming of the documentary "There's Still Someone in the Woods", the artistic team of Cultura i Conflicte participated in some of the interviews conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and was able to meet the real protagonists of the work directly or through the filmed materials. 

Several artistic residencies allowed the team to experiment with different documentary materials and artistic languages with the aim of developing the dramaturgy and staging of the work.

In November 2021, the Cultura i Conflicte team took the project to the Balkans. On a tour to Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Zagreb (Croatia), and Ljubljana (Slovenia), the documentary film, the photo exhibition, and the play were presented, and various discussions were held with the audience on a subject still taboo in these countries. Filmmaker Violeta Rodríguez infiltrated the artistic team and offers, with this short film, her most personal look at the team's work on and off stage.