Darkness There and Nothing More

Tea Tupajić was seven years old when the civil war in the former Yugoslavia reached her hometown Sarajevo. The scars the war left play a major role in her work as an artist. Tupajić asked Dutchbat veterans Frank and Harm to spend an entire night in conversation with her. The empty theater gradually darkens. Tupajić wants answers to some painful questions, but she also tries to discover something in the two men that can give her hope.

A woman, a man, and a camera: through this simple set-up Darkness There and Nothing More concentrates all attention to the words, gestures, and acts in these two meetings, which are often captured in tight camera frames. They show a dialog between two worlds that simply won’t combine, despite a shared longing for some kind of deliverance. Harm carries a huge sense of guilt, while Frank is entirely locked off from his emotions. Tupajić tries to explain that none of her family and friends, despite being alive, really survived the war. Are they ever going to understand each other’s grief