BALKAN DISKURS (19/11/2015)
In 1992, Vladimir Tomić was twelve years old when the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina started. He fled Sarajevo with his mother and older brother, and sought asylum in Denmark. With refugee camps completely full, the Danish Red Cross began housing refugees on an enormous ship called Flotel Europa, moored in the port of Copenhagen. Young Vladimir was excited about his new floating house, which became a temporary home for about 1,000 refugees from the former Yugoslavia, while they waited for decisions on their asylum applications.
Vladimir Tomić is now an award-winning director living in Copenhagen. He presented his documentary, Flotel Europa, at the Sarajevo Film Festival and received the Special Jury Mention at the closing ceremony on 22 August 2015. Flotel Europa also received the Jury’s Special Mention at the Berlinale Festival, the award for Best Balkan documentary at the Dokufest in Kosovo and the Best Documentary Award at the International Documentary Film Festival in Belgrade.
Flotel Europa is entirely based on footage shot by refugees living on the ship. Families used to send VHS messages and footage of on-board life to their relatives back home: people in the communal kitchen and laundry room, the TV room, dance performances, big celebrations and people playing music in their small windowless cabins. Drawing on his memories from the two years he lived on-board, the director transforms these images with an autobiographical narrative (…)
Read more: https://balkandiskurs.com/en/2015/11/19/flotel-europa-memories-of-a-bosnian-refugee-in-denmark/