Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

(Izvan Razumne Sumnje), Mina Vidakovic / SRB - MONTENEGRO, 2005
original version / English subtitles, 52 min

Post–war Europe made the promise to never again allow one nation or race or any one group of people to attempt to systematically wipe out another. Yet what happened in Yugoslavia was genocide, executed moreover with the United Nations looking on. The author of this documentary film, Mina Vidakovič, returns to the massacre at Srebrenica and records the testimony of those who survived the ordeal. Direct testimony from those who witnessed the Srebrenica massacre right where it happened, is the best evidence against those who committed the crime. General Ratko Mladič or Slobodan Miloševič, who were behind most the war crimes that took place during the work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are filmed in edited confrontation with the remaining inhabitants of Srebrenica. The director moreover works with video recordings made by members of the military units involved in the massacre. They capture the transport of inhabitants of Srebrenica under the false pretences of fears for their safety, the separation of the men capable of military service from the rest of the inhabitants, and the various methods of the mass murder and concealing the graves. Not all the bodies have been found to date, and that is why it is not even known exactly how many victims there were, which is important in determining the punishment for those convicted. The first minutes of Beyond Reasonable Doubt focuses on the preparation of the Nuremberg laws, followed by the construction of concentration camps, the existence of which some people despite all the evidence continue to doubt. The film by Mina Vidakovič helps refresh Europe's historical memory, so that it does not allow itself to forget any of the genocides of the 20th century.