The festival is - also in the online format - a place for encounters, dialogues and networking between
- art and "survival art creators" in BIH, the Balkans, the Ruhr metropolitan region and worldwide;
- the Bosnian community and volunteers the Ruhr metropolitan region;
- the interested professional public (culture, politics ...);
- cultural/educational institutions in Bottrop and the Ruhr metropolitan region, in BIH and neighbouring countries, as well as film-makers and film enthusiasts worldwide;
- the Förderfonds Interkultur Ruhr and other partners and supporters;
- the supporting association and aid organisations;
- a broad and colourful audience "from Bottrop to www".
THE POLITICAL SITUATION AS A CHALLENGE.
The festival, organised on a voluntary basis by our association "Aktion - Leben und Lernen in Bosnien e. V.", took place and continues to take place - like every civil society commitment to BIH - against the sad background that the process of consolidating the permanent political provisional BIH, initiated since the Dayton Agreement in 1995, is proving to be permanently deadlocked.
Latent revanchism and well-organised ethnic nationalism have long been forming kleptocratic structures in the ethnically tripartite country, while the position of the High Representative is weakened by tenacious self-blockades in the overarching international institution of the "Peace Implementation Council" - formed by over 50 participating states. .
WHY BOTTROP AND SARAJEVO, THE RUHR METROPOLITAN REGION AND BIH?
The country is currently almost exclusively present in the media in the context of European migration, refugee and external border policies.
All the more encouraging is every small sense of achievement for civil society actors on all sides! An intercultural solidarity between two European regions that are both challenged by flight, migration and a relapse into nationalist identity populism and unspeakable denials or relativisations of historical crimes of genocidal dimensions would at least be an approach of intercultural confidence to strengthen all still existing initiatives for common future perspectives with creativity based on solidarit.
