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Calling the Ghosts: A Story About Rape, War and Women
Mandy Jacobson/Karmen Jelincic | USA | 1996 | 60 min. | documentary

Jadranka Cigelj and Nusreta Sivac, childhood friends and legal professionals, enjoyed lives of "ordinary modern women" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, until they were put into a concentration camp, and raped and tortured by their neighbors. This powerful but sensitive film, chronicles the remarkable transformation of these women as their personal struggle for survival evolves into a larger fight for peace and justice. They formulate a mission--to put rape into the international lexicon of war crimes. Their success can be judged by the fact that their very torturers now stand indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal. Calling the Ghosts reaches beyond the anonymous "victim" compelling viewers to personalize women's stories and embrace a sense of universal humanity.

PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY: Mandy Jacobson
CO-DIRECTED BY: Karmen Jelincic
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Keiko Tsuno, Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV)
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Anita Saewitz
EDITOR: Susanne Rostock

Original language is English

World Premiere, 1996 Human Rights Watch Festival. Winner, 1996 Nestor Almendros Award. Distributed by Bowery Productions, Mandy Jacobson, 296 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10012, Tel: (212) 677-2286 Fax: (212) 533-0391.

Mandy Jacobson
Born and raised in South Africa, Jacobson holds a Masters Degree in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries from the London School of Economics. She has served as a community worker, specializing in gender issues and urban development and, as an activist, was involved in producing community videos for various progressive organizations. Jacobson has also produced short films and music videos for MTV award-winning director Milcho Manchevski (Before the Rain), and she produced an educational video series, Shifting Boundaries, Shifting Borders; Learning from Youth in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Public Information. Jacobson is also a director for Artworks, a weekly cultural program on national South African Television.

Karmen Jelincic
Co-director Karmen Jelincic is a graduate of Film and Television from New York University. She co-directed and produced Someone Stole the Baby, a video documentary about modern dance in North America. Born in Croatia and raised in the United States, she has been active with Bosnian refugees both in New York and along the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia. Jelincic recently completed graduate school at Columbia University, where she incorporated documentary filmmaking into the International Affairs Post Graduate Program. She spent the past two years also working for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights on their international program to support the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal.

Mandy Jacobson and Karmen Jelincic are the winners of the 1996 Nestor Almendros Award.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL