Title: The Danube Swabians
Author: Marko Cvejic
Year: 2011
Media Type: DVD
Lending Status: Borrow
How Acquired: ZVA purchase for SGS library
Review/Description: This DVD is another example of young Serbians discovering the Donauschwaben story and trying to spread it to a wider audience. To make the story more interesting to potential young Serbian viewers, it intersperses two different elements. To add interest and engage young viewers, the film begins with a modern day dramatic story , scenes of which are inserted throughout. In this narrative, a young German woman arrives in Serbia looking for the home of her grandfather, who was dispossessed after the war. She meets a young Serbian man who helps her in her search. They become romantic, which draws the attention of some Serbian bullies. This part of the film ends with the couple deciding that their future lies in Europe. The message is that Serbia must acknowledge its past sins and become more tolerant of non-Serbians so that it can join the European Union and become more prosperous. However, the bulk of the film tells the Donauschwaben story, beginning with a brief history of the settlement, and then the personal recollections of people who lived through the post-war experience of dispossession and internment camps. It appears that these people live in Serbia today and must have been small children at the time of the events. It is encouraging to see that their stories are now being told and acknowledged in Serbia. The film is in the Serbian language with English subtitles. You can see a preview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAUlwTqCYXI WARNING: This DVD was produced in Serbia. The producers attempted to find a format that would work in North America, but they were only partly successful. From comments by several purchasers, it seems that the DVD works in a computer DVD player, but not a player meant to feed a television.