The Batajnica Memorial Initiative is a multi-faceted project developed by the Humanitarian Law Center that aims to establish a memorial site in virtual space that provides information on victims based on court documentation and personal testimonies. Additionally, the Initiative launched an online petition for establishing a Memorial Site for the victims of crimes, whose bodies were found in secret mass graves, and produced the documentary called “Depth Two” about a mass grave discovered in Batajnica in 2001, in which the bodies of Kosovo Albanian civilians killed during the war in Kosovo were found. Click here for the list of victims, their stories, and the petition.
“Depth Two” premiered at the 66th International Film Festival in Berlin (Berlinale) in February 2016, and was subsequently shown at festivals in Greece, Germany, Serbia, UK, Romania, Russia, Kosovo, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Brazil, Macedonia, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Spain. It was also screened in several towns in Serbia and Kosovo. The film won the Award for Best Film Editing at the Beldocs International documentary film festival in Belgrade, the Grand Jury Award at the Open City festival in London, the Critics Award at the Atlántida Film Fest in Spain, the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards at the KineNova Film Festival in Skopje, and the Grand Prix of the festival at the IFF Message to Man in Saint Petersburg, Russia. A short video collage about the film’s screenings can be viewed here. Columbia was pleased to host a New York screening of the film in January, 2017.
The final phase of the project is currently underway. This phase includes a number of activities: (1) Organizing high-profile public debates targeting students and young historians, human rights activists and artists from Kosovo and Serbia in order to initiate a discussion on the memorialization of the Kosovo war in both societies and possible concepts of the future memorial center ‘Batajnica - Site of Memory and Conscience’. (2) Conducting a public call for proposals for the concept of the future memorial center ‘Batajnica – Site of Memory and Conscience’ and organizing an exhibition of the shortlisted proposals. (3) Preparing and submitting the official request for the establishment of the Batajnica Memorial Centre to the Serbian Parliament and Government, and along with the winning concept, at least 7,000 signatures of support and messages by participants of the New Generation Dialogue Forum and other supporters.
The project work now being carried out by Jelena Krstic.
