The Prosecutor, the Defender, the Father and his Son

Witness K109, 18 years old Bosnian identified as Deyan Palic, is the key witness in the trial that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Hague Tribunal) ordered against Milorad Krstic, accused of committing war crimes as a commander in the Bosnian war. The determined defender Mikhail Finn has to fight against the motivated prosecutor Catherine Lagrange to prove the unreliability of her witness.

The film is inspired by the true story of the trial against Miroslav Deronjic, sentenced to ten years' imprisonment by the Hague Tribunal for ordering, as the head of the Bratunac Municipal Board, the mass murder of 64 Bosniak civilians in the Bosnian village of Glogova.

The talented and worldwide acclaimed director Iglika Triffonova reminds us of her skills as a documentary filmmaker by opening the film with harsh black and white interviews of witnesses describing the atrocities committed against the Muslim community in Glogova. The images are powerful and the recounts of the barbaric events quickly establish the emotional frame in which the characters move. It is indeed with the attention to the dismantling of family and social relationships that the director points our attention to the psychological, religious and cultural consequences of the Bosnian war. Therefore our everyday life might seem like a miracle worth to fight for to someone who grew up "killing and burying each other".

Giampietro Balia / PÖFF

Bulgaria / Sweden / The Netherlands 2015