Sarajevo Guided Tours

Sarajevo Guided Tours shows eight different locations within a city, the individual urban excerpts organized into brief, discrete segments. While the title refers to the format of a tourist’s gaze and experience, Isa Rosenberger subverts the idea of a guided tour by examining the question of how places are invented. “Guided tours” usually concentrate on highlights in the conventional sense. They are incorporated into this moment of the extraordinary’s construction, which serves as a catalyst for Rosenberger’s portrait of the city, a story resembling both documentary videography and subjective narration.
The footage was shot during the artist’s ten-day visit to Sarajevo in April 2001. Invited to tour the city as part of the At First Sight project, an initiative organized by the
Sarajevo Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA), eight individuals she meets during her stay are asked to take her to places with a special personal significance and then
describe them. The result is eight consecutive portraits of public spaces and their inhabitants in which private and public history are woven into a fabric of architectural impressions, individual perspectives and ideas, and structural, factual data concerning everyday life in a city still associated primarily with images of the siege and destruction. The portraits are preceded by a prologue: Black-and-white television footage, taken from The Sarajevo Tunnel by Edis Kolar, shows the May 1992 siege. In the course of the work the prologue, the title and the portraits merge to form a text both real and imaginary entitled “Sarajevo.” (Rike Frank)
Translation: Steve Wilder

Orig. Title
Sarajevo Guided Tours
Year
2002
Country
Austria
Duration
30 min
Director
Isa Rosenberger
Category
Documentary
Orig. Language
English
Downloads
Credits
Director
Isa Rosenberger
Music
Adi Lukovac, Ornamenti
Postproduction
ZONE
Participant
Ajdin Basic, Igor Bararon, Suzana Ceric, Arslan Rascic, Rascic Ognjenka, Lejla Hodzic
Supported by
Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Sarajevo Center for Contemporary Art, Faruk Sabanovic
Available Formats
Festivals (Selection)
2002
Duisburger - Filmwoche
2003
Rotterdam - Int. Filmfestival
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des Österreichischen Films
Bochumer Videofestival
Ludwigsburg - Filmfest
2004
Pesaro - Film Festival