Dealing with the Past

FES SOE has been working on Dealing with the Past throughout the region in many different formats. However, since 2021, we have expanded our partnership on this program to include several different and unique platforms contributing to achieving genuine reconciliation in Southeast Europe. While recognizing that experiences from the past and priority challenges vary throughout the region, many of them are primarily linked to the trauma and history of the 90s conflicts in the Western Balkans. When creating our activities, though, we wanted to explore beyond the usual methods and decided to focus the majority of our work in creating meaningful progress in promotion of peace and just and fair societies by using art and culture as our starting point.  

Dealing with the Past in Southeast Europe currently covers partnerships with three film festivals in the region, namely the world-famous Sarajevo Film Festival, Rab Film Festival and Novi Sad Film Festival „Obnova“. Within these partnerships, FES SOE works on bringing together young people from the region and facilitating the exchange of the experiences they have when it comes to reconciliation and the history of the region. In addition to hosting film screenings related to these topics, we also establish workshops, dialogue with artists and film creators, academics and their peers.

Asife from our work with the powerful medium that cinema truly is, we work on other activities that we recongize as valuable to fostering respectful culture of rememberance and objective telling of the region's history. With other FES offices in the region, we work on the Joint History Project, the History of the Goli Otok in Croatia and other activities that we hope can bring about a meanigful change in understanding the past in Southeast Europe.