On 2 April, 2005, the world premiere of a truly unique event took place: the television series, Videoletters, was broadcast simultaneously by the public TV stations of all the countries of former Yugoslavia, marking an instance of cooperation unprecedented since the wars of the 1990s.The documentary series showed people making 'video letters' addressed to former friends, colleagues and neighbours with whom they had lost touch for one reason or another during the conflict. These were emotional letters in which long-unspoken questions were asked and contact renewed.

Components of the Videoletters project:

The project started as a documentary series and has evolved into a tool for conflict resolution. Its comprehensive programme consists of a Videoletters caravan, forums for debate on conflict resolution, and mechanisms of support for those traumatised or seeking to reconnect with former friends estranged by war.

• Videoletters website (http://www.videoletters.net) - a site which includes a search engine to help find lost friends. It also features projects for schools and former soldiers, help for those who are traumatised, and live discussions on truth and reconciliation.
• Videoletters caravan - buses equipped with internet connections and webcams travelled through the former Yugoslavia to enable people to record their own videoletters and post them on the website.
• Videoletters internet counters - permanent internet counters equipped with webcams are installed throughout the countries involved in the project. They are free of charge and are designed to help people record and post their videoletters or look for lost friends on the website.
• Videoletters helpline - telephone helplines were accessible to people experiencing trauma or emotional problems after each broadcast.
• Videoletters talkshow - radio and TV talkshows on truth and reconciliation followed the broadcast of Videoletters.
• Videoletters ambassadors - famous artists, sportsmen and musicians of all nationalities promote Videoletters on radio, TV and the internet.

The TV series was shot over five years, between 1999 and 2004. The authors and directors of the series were Katarina Rejger and Eric van den Broek, independent documentary filmmakers from the Netherlands and directors of 'The Making of the Revolution', an award-winning documentary on the fall of the Milosevic regime.

The filmmakers helped initiate conversation with those on the 'other side', and also acted as recorders and as 'postmen' shuttling back and forth between correspondents. The project's sponsors include the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Embassy in Belgrade, the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Press Now, the Open Society Institute, the European Cultural Foundation, Care Netherlands, the Swiss Embassy in Bosnia and Hercegovina, GTZ, and xs4all Internet.

Background and motivation

Rejger and Van den Broek conceived this five-year project as a tool for reconnecting people. During their stay in the region, they kept hearing similar stories from the people they met: 'Once I had a friend who is Croat/Serb/Muslim, we were so close, but since the war he doesn’t even phone me...' They decided to address the situation, using film to reconnect lost friends and let them explain what happened and why they lost touch.

The idea of Videoletters developed as Rejger and van den Broek were editing some film footage from 1996. As one of them explains: 'I was editing in a destroyed building belonging to Bosnian television. The Muslim technician that was helping me was staring obsessively at the footage. She wanted to know exactly how it was going with the Croats and how they thought about things. Other Muslims asked us about Serbians they once knew. We intuitively sensed that many people still have good feelings for each other on a strictly personal level.' (Volkskrant, 7 March, 2005).

The filmmakers decided to give TV stations in the former Yugoslavia first option on screening the documentary, free of charge. In this way, they used television as a medium of reconciliation — a very different way of using a medium which had spread nationalist propaganda and incited hatred during the conflict.The Videoletters series was broadcast on public television in each of the seven nations that once formed Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia.

The project dealt with trans-border collaboration on several levels. First, participants involved had to get in touch with others living in different countries with different nationalities. As the series was broadcast, partner public stations worked together on the same project. It was the first time since the war that stations collaborated in such a manner.

Initially, the directors had very small budgets that covered only travel expenses for some episodes. Eventually, funding from the UK and Dutch governments allowed the project to become possible in full.

Challenges faced: Building trust

Embarking on the project meant attempting something unique and unprecedented.The authors encountered difficulty and obstacles at every stage. There was the fear experienced by ordinary participants - fear of being filmed, of reconnecting with old loved ones, of being rejected. The directors had to deal with trauma from the war and confront old prejudices. In some places, for example, talking to a Croat/Serb/Muslim was considered by some as politically incorrect. Some also feared that the Dutch couple was doing the work of the Hague Tribunal.

According to Rejger, 'We had to gain trust to get the money; to convince the ones that we were filming to be filmed; the ones that were financing that we would make it; the ones that were broadcasting that it should be broadcast.'

Although many people initially felt apprehensive about participating in Videoletters, following its successful broadcast, the project became an important mechanism for conflict resolution. Through the website, www.videoletters.net, old friends can find each other again and also get guidance and information. Videoletters ambassadors - actors and famous personalities - have recorded video letters to fellow artists of other nationalities. Across the region, organisers put up internet counters for people to record their own messages and radio stations announced the arrival of letters. Accompanied by a multi-ethnic team and a music band, Rejger and van den Broek also held debates in various communities.

Videoletters: a different point of view

At Turin's 'Torinospiritualità' festival on 20 September, 2006, a meeting with the creators of Videoletters took place. Two video letters were shown and the creators explained their project.

They maintained that the keyword to explain what had happened to the people who sent – and received – the video letters in former Yugoslavia was FEAR. Fear was, in different ways, the answer to the question which lay behind all the video letters: 'Why did you never call me and ask me how I was during the war?' Fear about what a friend might think of one, fear about what that friend might have done during the war, fear of never having really known that person… Fear meant that people lost each other and lost trust in what they had known before the war. They had stopped talking and needed reconnecting. But, amazingly, dialogue had not resumed even after the war. On a number of occasions the project's creators would be having dinner in some restaurant when Videoletters came on the television; suddenly the people in the restaurant began to talk to each other about their lives during the war. During ten years of peace they had never faced this issue, even though they had lived and worked closely together.

The value of Videoletters has been more universal than that of simply reconnecting people. When the pilot episode, 'Emil & Sasa', was shown in a refugee camp in Burundi, people living there wept and could not believe that two white men were suffering as they were because of war. Importantly, the project evolved so as to enable other countries to see the value of such post-conflict exchange for themselves.

The Turin conference was about spirituality. According to Katarina Rejger, the experience of war and the experience of the divine are alike in that one steps into another world where everything is different. At times of conflict, people have to deal with life and death issues; they have to choose to stay or to go away, to use violence or to suffer it. She learned a valuable lesson from seeing flowers growing through the rubble of houses that were completely destroyed by the war - colourful, fragrant flowers… this was almost a painful sight. Something similar happens to people too: despite the horrible things they did to each other, and even if they did not talk to each other any more, they could still be friends. They could still be reconnected. They only needed a chance.

A synposis of the Videoletters series

Videoletters was a 20-part documentary series about reconciliation set in former Yugoslavia. In each episode, two people of different nationalities send each other a videoletter. Before the war they used to be friends, neighbours or colleagues. In intimate video messages, they each explain to the other how they had become estranged. The letters tell the stories of friends who haven’t spoken since the war because they were angry or hurt or afraid or because they ended up on opposite sides during the conflict. The filmmakers then locate and deliver the letters to the addressee. The recipient replies and, if possible, the two parties meet for the first time since the war.

A brief summary of Episode One: Emil & Saša grew up in Pale in Bosnia & Hercegovina. During their childhood they were inseparable. If you were looking for Emil, you would also find Saša. If you called out for Saša, Emil would come along too. Later on, during school hours, in secret, they drank coffee in Sarajevo, just like grown-ups did. They called themselves Yugoslavs.The war changed their world instantly. Saša had to join the army: his father was Serbian. Emil had to flee: his father was Muslim. Where Saša was, Emil could not stay; where Emil went, Saša was not welcome. They don't speak to each other again. Ten years later, Emil explains in his videoletter to Saša why: ‘I never called you because you did something horrible during the war, so I heard.' (More episode summaries can be found at: www.videoletters.net.)