My Father’s Diaries review – haunting home-video excavates trauma of Srebrenica massacre

Ado Hasanović’s moving documentary transforms footage filmed during the Bosnian war into a devastating portrait of memory, survival and inherited grief For years, film-maker Ado Hasanović has wanted to ask his father, Bekir, about his harrowing experiences during the Bosnian war but their conversations usually ended with curt, abrupt answers that obscured rather than illuminated the past. Bekir might be uncommunicative, but his collection of self-taped films and diary entries recorded during the height of the conflict tells a different story. Culled from this powerful personal archive, Hasanović’s poignant documentary forges a dialogue not just with history, but also across generations. In 1993, along with two other friends, Bekir formed a film-making collective called John, Ben & Boys in the small mountain town of Srebrenica. As the war escalated, what began as a playful amateur exercise quickly transformed into intentional documentation, as if Bekir was already aware of the genoc...

Literary satire American Fiction takes Toronto film festival’s top award

Cord Jefferson’s story of a novelist (Jeffrey Wright) grappling with the publishing industry’s expectations of black writers is now practically guaranteed serious Oscar consideration

American Fiction, the literary satire starring Jeffrey Wright as a novelist grappling with the publishing industry’s expectations of black writers, has won the Toronto international film festival’s influential People’s Choice award, a result that practically guarantees it serious Oscar consideration and contention for major awards.

Described by the Guardian as “hilarious and withering”, American Fiction triumphed over pre-festival favourites such as Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers and Hayao Miyazaki’s final film The Boy and the Heron, which were named the runners-up. It is written and directed by Cord Jefferson, a credited writer on TV shows including The Good Place, Watchmen and Station Eleven, and now making his feature directing debut.

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