56th International Berlin Film Festival‪.‬

The 56th Berlin Film Festival, which was held in the German capital from February 9 to 18, happened to coincide this year with the controversy about cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed that engulfed all of Europe. The turmoil created by the this debate was perhaps not an inappropriate context for the Berlinale, not only because the city is home to Germany's largest Muslim community, but because the festival has a long-standing reputation for politically provocative films. While in this year's crop there were again a number of films with strong political themes or undertones, few gave rise to anything remotely comparable to the controversy the Danish newspaper caused when it decided to run the cartoon. For even though this year's films were remarkable for their variety in subject matter, style, or country of origin, controversial they were not. No controversy but a bit of surprise accompanied the announcement that the Golden Bear went to the Bosnian film Grbavica by Jasmila Zbanic. Zbanci's first feature film is set in postwar Sarajevo and revolves around a single mother and her twelve-year-old daughter who has been raised believing that her father was a hero who died in the war. When events in school prompt the daughter to learn more about her absent father, the mother has to reveal a haunting secret. The title of the film refers to the part of Sarajevo occupied by the Serbian army to torture the Bosnian population, and it was here, we learn, that the mother was raped and became pregnant. Like the 2003 Berlinale contribution Svjedoci (Witnesses, Vinko Bressan), Grbavica probes the wounds of the civil war in an effort to initiate a working through the trauma by telling stories that for too long could not be told, be it for lack of courage of those who should speak, or the unwillingness to listen by those who did not want to hear.