Film Screening & Discussion. Men Don’t Cry

Please join the Harriman Institute and the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) for a screening of the 2017 film Men Don’t Cry (Muskarci ne plaču). The screening will be followed by a discussion with the film’s director Alen Drljević, film scholar Dijana Jelača, and Columbia professor Tanya Domi. Bosnian language with English subtitles. Film runtime: 98 minutes.

Twenty years after the conclusion of the Bosnian War, a group of men meet to discuss their experiences and process the events that shaped their lives decades ago. Comprised of a diverse group ethnic backgrounds, including Bosnian, Croat, and Serbian descent, the men alternate between confronting and avoiding painful memories through a mix of therapy sessions and drunken revelry. Set at a remote mountain hotel, the film features cinematography that straddles the aesthetic line between documentary and narrative film, often leaving the viewer with a sense of unease. Men Don’t Cry embraces moral uncertainty and the effects of time on painful memories as it explores themes of ethnic conflict and the impact, both physical and emotional, that war leaves on its participants. The film also delves into gender issues with its exploration of the role played by masculinity in shaping war and the way veterans deal with their past experiences. Tense and unsettling, Men Don’t Cry casts doubt on the value and possibility of the emotional catharsis sought by its protagonists.