Boško and Admira

Description

The starting point of the project is a wartime photograph of a dead couple embracing on the Vrbanja Bridge. In 1993, Muslim woman Admira Ismić and Orthodox Christian Boško Brkić tried to escape the besieged Sarajevo but were killed by a sniper just a few meters from the border. Despite the opposition of both families, two Americans — photographer Mark H. Milstein and journalist Kurt Schork — dubbed the couple the “Sarajevo Romeo and Juliet,” turning the tragic death of these two young people into a sensational story, and their lifeless bodies into an image and a symbol of love cut short by war. The photograph, therefore, conceals a series of unanswered questions about how the public reacts to such images, and whether some stories, some lives, are considered more important than others. Beyond the frame of this specific image, it raises a broader question of war photography: its purpose, its aim, its ethics, its effectiveness, and its ability to shock today. When torn between glorifying the violence of war and warning of its horrors, it finds itself in a position similar to that of theatre — speaking of something that cannot be expressed in words.

Cast

Primož Bezjak
Nataša Keser
Boris Kos
Kaja Petrović / Daša Doberšek (jump)
Stane Tomazin

Creators

Director: Živa Bizovičar
Dramaturgy: Nik Žnidaršič
Set and Video Design: Dorian Šilec Petek
Costume Design: Nina Čehovin
Music and Sound Design: Gašper Lovrec
Lighting Design: Andrej Hajdinjak
Language Editing: Mateja Dermelj
Graffiti: Dorijan Šiško
Stage Manager: Urša Červ