It was released in 2015
Location: Kosovo region
People: A Serb and an Albanian family
Protagonist: A Serb 9-year-old boy, Nenad
Story takes place: 2004
"Goodbye Is Still a Friend"
The Kosovo region is a complex place where ethnic contradictions are concentrated, where historical strife continues and where wars are raging. For as long as we can remember, we've always seen this place on TV in the midst of war riots. The issues left over from history are complex, race, sovereignty, belonging, religion, and it seems that disputes are perpetually perpetuated. At present, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo account for more than 90 per cent, with a very small minority of Serbs. Both peoples see themselves as the masters of Kosovo.
The film was filmed after the 1999 Kosovo War, where peacekeepers were stationed.
The village was destroyed by fighting
Nenard came home from school
In the beginning, it was a 9-year-old Serb boy "Nenad" reciting his essay "My Best Friend" at school:
"I don't have a best friend because I live in the village where I have no other children. I love playing with my grandfather, Miludin, who is 86 years old and has nice people. His son's name is Voya, which is my father. Miludin and Voa argue because Voa always drinks too much brandy. Miludin said to his son, "Son, I hope you don't get drunk when I die, or only the Albanians will bury me." My dad, Voya, replied, "God, why should I rot here with him?" Miludin said, "I will die here, where I was born." And you, the idiot drunkard, you can leave if you have anywhere else you can go." Voja said, "Then let the refugees from Belgrade [the capital of Serbia] take care of you." The refugee he was talking about was Miludin's daughter Militsa, my aunt. I basically don't know her because she fled to Belgrade when the Albanians, with nato help, conquered Kosovo (the 1999 Kosovo War). There she married a baker from Ubud (a city in central and western Serbia). Miludin said, "I just want to live a little longer, and when I see my granddaughter in Belgrade, I'm dead." Miludin didn't live long, and he was so ill that he couldn't get out of bed. I'll play dominoes with him and I'll always win. Whenever I win, he gives me a piece of sugar. I was so sad, he was dying, no one would play with me again, no one would give me candy again. ”
Nenard was the only student
The teacher's message on the blackboard: I left, you don't have to go to school again
The whole village had a whole school on his side as a Serb child. Because of the teacher's departure, it means that he is out of school again.
The armoured vehicles of the peacekeepers were his means of transportation to and from school, and the priest accompanied him every day after school. He was the only person outside of Dad and Grandpa who was associated with him.
Armored vehicles from peacekeepers came to pick him up from school
The pastor was his only friend
Albanian children: Our grandmother was also Serb
Every day on the way out of school, Albanian children chase armored vehicles and throw stones to show their hatred. After all, the child is a child, and curiosity drives them to want to get on the mysterious armored car. They told Ahmadinejad that their grandmother was also A serb and asked him to help them ask if they could get in that car.
Bashkin was the head of a child, and his father was killed in a conflict, sowing the seeds of hatred in his young heart, and he was inseparable from the Serbs.
You killed the shepherd's father, Bashkin
The story is intertwined in two lines: a Serbian family to hold a funeral for Nenad's grandfather, her aunt to return with her daughter, and an Albanian family to hold a wedding for Bashkin's brother.
Serbs enter Kosovo and present UNHCR documents
Funeral for father
The Albanians play festive music
The Albanians fired guns to celebrate the wedding
The groom is shaving and preparing to greet the bride
The sad loneliness of the funeral and the joyous bustle of the wedding are in stark contrast. While the adults were busy with their own business, conflict finally broke out, concentrating on Bashkin and Nenad. The resentment of the history of national contradictions is in Bashkin's heart. Away from the scene of the funeral or the wedding, away from the eyes of the adults, in the chapel where the priest was, a few children played. In the process of playing, a large bell trapped Nenad, Bashkin thought that he had completed his revenge in the game, trapped Nenad had no food, water, and could not last for a few days. And in that desolate little church. Few people would go there.
Nenard and a few children play hide-and-seek
Bashkin returned home, and when pressed by his grandfather, he said it was the Serbs who had shot him. Leg injuries and lying have reignited hatred among their families, and ethnic conflicts are on the verge of erupting. Albanians began burning Serb churches, houses, and destroying cemeteries, with gunfire coming and going. Voya and his family began frantically searching for Nenad, looking for them all over the place.
In the game, Bashkin forces Nenad to count
The stubborn Nenad ignored this set
A child persuaded Nenad
When Bashkin realized that his mistake could bring devastating disaster, he felt guilty, and he felt that the serbian boy He hated, Nenad, seemed to have done nothing wrong. So he took the initiative to send chocolate and water to the Serbs trapped in the bell, and told the peacekeeping forces and found the dying Nenad under the bell.
After repenting, Bashkin came to the rescue of Nenad
Later, Nenad came to Belgrade as a refugee with his father, and in the school he had many classmates, but when he introduced himself from Kosovo, his classmates called him "Albanian", alienated him and even treated him with resentment and hatred, and in the essay "My Best Friend" assigned by the teacher, he wrote about the real Albanian ---- Bashkin.
Classmates called him: Albanian
Lonely Nenad