In Srebrenica one of the darkest pages of the twentieth century was written and for reconsidering Europe and for avoiding to fall in the error to dismiss the Balkan conflict as something solved and far away in time, it is necessary to restart from that place. A lesson of the memory against the danger of nationalisms, the divisions and the manifestations of intolerance.
Internationally acknowledged as the last Genocide carried on in the heart of Europe after the end of the Second World War, Srebrenica did not see yet a full accountability at European level about what happened in that place 25 years ago.
At Potocari, the Memorial of Srebrenica’s victims is not yet an European Memorial; it witnesses pain and shame for what happened and it asks that Europe “reconsider” itself starting from a perspective of a new humanism, responding to those principles of brotherhood and solidarity that inspired the Father Founders when writing the Ventotene’s Manifesto.
The events. After three long years of siege, around the 9th of July 1995, the Serb Bosnian army attacked its own Protected Area of Srebrenica and the surrounding area. The offensive goes on until the 11th of July, 1995, when the Serb-Bosnian units led by General Ratko Mladic enter in the Bosnian small town. The attack brings rapes, mutilations, executions of civilians, burials of the living. But the massacre of 8.372 civilians that takes place in the middle of July is only the epilogue of a story that began three years earlier: a story of Siege.
They say: who survived to Srebrenica cannot say to have feelings in his body, and those who did not know it cannot say that they saw the war in Bosnia. That’s why it is important telling the siege and the fall of Srebrenica.
“I was born in a country in front of the sea…” a woman goes back when she was a child and she scrutinizes the horizon from the eastern coast of Italy. “What’s on on the other side?”, she wonders. A simple question, but we did not ask that question when the answer was one: on the other side of the sea there was a country and there was a war.
An actress, alone on the stage, for more than one hour, becomes narrator and protagonist of a story in which the reason of a State and the International Policy Interests played Risiko with the life of tens of thousands of people.
A performance / testimony that commemorates the victims and points the finger at the executioners: Attackers and Attacked.
by and with Roberta Biagiarelli
direction Simona Gonella
inspiring Master Luca Rastello
duration 85′
Roberta Biagiarelli has been working as an actress and author since 1985, working for many years with Laboratorio Teatro Settimo (TO), Cooperativa Moby Dick in Mira (VE), Centro teatrale di Pontedera (PI), Armunia – Castello Pasquini in Castiglioncello (LI) and La Corte Ospitale in Rubiera (RE). With the founding of Babelia & C. – progetti culturali, Roberta Biagiarelli creates the place to devote herself with greater effort to the production, research and interpretation of social and historical themes. She is the author and interpreter of the monologues: Srebrenica, Reportage Chernobyl, Falluja (Trilogy of Disappeared Places) and of Resistenti, leva militare ‘926. She produces and performs the documentaries Souvenir Srebrenica (2006), La neve di giugno (2007), Transumanza della Pace (2012). The uniqueness of the themes dealt with in her theater work and her rootedness in the present led her to open up to collaborations with fields concerning International Cooperation, NGOs and other socially engaged organizations. She is the coordinator and manager from 2008 to 2010 of a pilot project for socio-cultural revitalization in the Srebrenica area in Bosnia-Herzegovina. She also continues with the production of other theater projects: Il poema dei monti naviganti, L’Altra Opera, Giuseppe Verdi agricoltore, Figlie dell’epoca – donne di pace in tempo di guerra, Concertina 22 and Pazi Snajper. In September 2016 she publishes the volume Dal libro dell’esodo (Edizioni Piemme), co-author with the photojournalist Luigi Ottani, about the experience made in August 2015 on the Greek-Macedonian border, meeting Syrian refugees. Author and director, among others, of the production Migrantenate, le custodi dell’altro, created with second-generation boys and girls. Curator and organizer of Balcani d’Europa – lo specchio del noi, esercizi di cittadinanza: meetings, testimonies, historical insights to understand our present realized in Modena and its Province in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Curator and organizer of Europa Femminile Singolare for the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, 2019. Creator and curator of the project Vista sull’Europa in 2019, 2020 and 2021. In November 2020 she publishes the book Shooting in Sarajevo (BEE), co-author with Luigi Ottani.