Dragana Jurišić: The Balkan Cowboy

“Artist Dragana Jurišić travels to the town of Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to stage a short film in the style of a mythical cult Western director Hari Džekson (Harry Jackson). In an attempt to uncover the story of Hari’s life and legacy, Dragana embarks on making a Western with the local community. She meets his former collaborators, family members, and local residents, piecing together memories of Hari’s town before the war and getting to know its inhabitants today. The resulting documentary film becomes an exploration of the impact of war on Hari, herself and the town. It also asks the question if the spirit of Hari Dzekson still exists today.”

This is what the film is about. It is entertaining to watch, especially her Western auditions with kids and grown-ups, many knew Hari, described him as a nice guy, “he was always chasing justice”, worked with him on his westerns, knew how to hold a gun and how to operate it. So it is a looking-back film with Dragana Jurišić, who lives in Ireland, contemplating on nationalism, “the ideology of idiots” as one says. There is an interview with the journalist Yusuf, who was captured and tortured by the warlord Arkan and his group – “noone has until today been held accountable for what Arkan did when he was in Bijeljina”. And the shocking photos of Ron Haviv are shown. You can go to the internet to take a look, I can’t afford to show them here.

I prefer to stay with the director and skilled photographer Dragana, who finds a location in the countryside, where Darko lives, a bachelor, who invites the film crew to come and shoot the western in memory of Harry Jackson at his place.

Hari stayed in Bijeljina but sent his family – wife and kids – abroad.

Nationalism… there is a short clip from Dublin, from a demonstration against foreigners coming to Ireland, “send them back”. Alas, could have been Copenhagen…

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Ireland, Croatia, 2026, 93 mins.

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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