PRESS RELEASE
Initiative of journalists and photographers of besieged Sarajevo
TWENTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP AND SOLIDARITY
Gift for Sarajevo and its citizens – photo book of 45 war-time photographers
(SARAJEVO, March 23, 2012) From April 2 until April 8 2012, on the initiative of French journalist Remy Ourdan, supported by Festival MESS programme Memory Module, numerous events will mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo. It is informal initiative that would spontaneously bring together individuals and organizations aiming to revival not only remembrance of hard time that Sarajevo went through but also to revive the spirit of friendship and solidarity as a sort of phenomena of longest siege in modern history – siege of Sarajevo.
“Most important thing is that all programmes are being initiated by sincere friends of Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina and all of our events are open and everyone are welcome!», underlined Nihad Kreševljaković, director of Sarajevo War Theatre and art director of Festival MESS Memory Modul programe. He shortly presented the programe, and announced conference on April 6, 2012 at Holiday Inn that would gather guests from abroad and local artists. Also, a book of photographies donated by 45 photographers would be introduced at this Conference, while half of contributing photographers would attend the event.
«For me it is really touchy that my friends from Sarajevo expresse their interest to jointly organize everything, to interact with us as we did 20 years ago», pointed out Ourdan who stayed in Sarajevo by choice during entire siege and first year after the war. «To war journalists and photographers that I met in Libya, Kabul, Baghdad, Sarajevo remained one of the most important story and where ever we met we talked about Sarajevo», Ourdan said giving two reasons for this. Firstly, the war in Sarajevo was covered by international media like no other since Vietnam. Secondly, number of people interested for this reunion shows the importance that Sarajevo has for all. «If similar reunion would be organized in other cities that experienced conflict maybe not even 20 of us would show-up. But, because of evertything that Sarajevo mean to us, you would witness hundreds of people comeing at their own cost, without any official invitation or organization, to mark the date that reminds us everyone on events that changed all of our lives», concluded Ourdan.
Program starts on April 2 with book fair organized by Center Andre Malraux, while on April 4, Media Centar would host «Night of Radio Zid». Organized by project consortium FAMA, Festival MESS, Education builds BiH, Youth Initiative for Human Rights BiH, on April 5, 2012 Virtual FAMA Collection and the project «Museum of Sarajevo Siege – Art of Living 92-96 FAMA Collection» would be presented. As previously announced, the central event of the Initiative, conference in Holiday Inn also being a part of the Memory Module would take place on April 6, while April 7, 2012 would be mark by exhibition of Jim Marshall and Ed Vulliamy’s book promotion.
Detailed program available at www.mess.ba
