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In the early 1990s, ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia erupted into a series of wars across the Balkans. The 1,500-day Siege of Sarajevo was one of the conflicts’ most brutal episodes, as Serbian forces, supported by groups of ethnic Bosnian Serbs, attempted an ethnic cleansing of the region’s Muslims. While countless events and historical forces built up to the Bosnian War, nine-year-old Igor Drljača, who was a third-grader at Sarajevo’s Simón Bolívar Elementary School when the violence broke out, became convinced it was his fault. After all, feeling nervous about a poor grade in art, he had prayed he’d never have to go back to his school – a wish that came fatefully true.
In his short documentary The Fuse: or How I Burned Simón Bolívar (2011), Drljača, now a filmmaker in Canada and an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, revisits family VHS tapes to recount how his childhood collided with forces he couldn’t possibly comprehend. In doing so, he transforms this deeply personal story of trauma into a much more universal reflection on lost innocence, and how being a child can be accompanied by simultaneous, paradoxical feelings of both boundless power and crushing powerlessness.
Director: Igor Drljača
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Engineering
A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations
9 minutes
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Architecture
West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?
12 minutes
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Work
A Swedish expat in the Philippines wonders: what’s up with people sleeping at work?
14 minutes
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Biography and memoir
The unique life philosophy of Abdi, born in Somalia, living in the Netherlands
29 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
What’s this buzz about bees having culture? Inside a groundbreaking experiment
8 minutes
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Earth science and climate
The only man permitted in Bhutan’s sacred mountains chronicles humanity’s impact
22 minutes
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Art
‘If you’re creative, why can’t you create a solution?’ One artist’s imaginative activism
17 minutes
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The ancient world
An ancient Roman’s hilarious (and perhaps relatable) response to a social snub
2 minutes
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Death
A hunter’s lyrical reflection on the humbling business of being mortal
6 minutes