The latest film by the legendary documentary-maker Marcel Ophuls is being screened in relation to Le Chagrin et la Pitié, that is showing in the programme of The First Festival. Veillées d’armes, produced by Bertrand Tavernier, consists of a series of three films that were made during four different journeys that Ophuls made to besieged Sarajevo. Using portraits of foreign correspondents and war reporters stationed in Sarajevo, the director also provides his own vision on the bloody civil war that is euphemistically described as ‘events in Bosnia’. Ophuls poses very critical questions about the way the broadcasts are made that keep the TV- watching world abreast of the various truths at the front. He attacks the occasionally conscious blindness that is feigned by the politically-controlled media. The film lasts more than four hours and is mainly set in the Holiday Inn Hotel in Sarajevo, where most journalists in Sarajevo are to be found. From this hotel, Ophuls follows world-famous reporters such as Pulitzer Prize winner John Burns (New York Times) on their exploration of the besieged city. He looks at both the practical aspects and the dangers of this work as well as for its effect on public opinion. And Ophuls would not be Ophuls if he didn’t examine the ethical aspects of journalism. He also compares the way in which other wars, such as that in Vietnam, were followed by journalists (and hence also by politicians and the military).
