"Hana" of the art of dealing with trauma in search of justice

“We must tell the truth as it is”, for the director of the film “Hana”, Ujkan Hysaj, is not just a statement but a maxim on which he built his film “Hana” which premiered at “PriFest”. It is a multilayered narrative just like the main character Hana (Sheqerie Buçaj) who, using art, aims to emerge from the traumas as a survivor of sexual violence in search of justice not only for herself but also for her family.

It is often said that art is used as therapy. Or as a mediator in dealing with the traumas that a person or a group of people have suffered. And there are quite a few philosophical theories about this. But how this process is carried out, what it looks like along the way, how it is faced, are very concrete issues. And this is what “Hana” deals with. Ujkan Hysaj's feature-length film has several films within it. It is headed by that of Hana and Sara. They are the same character. One who speaks from the inside and is a survivor of sexual violence during the last war in Kosovo and another who tries to avoid it. Hysaj seems to have tried to reflect a difficult reality, to show that art is therapy and, through the production of the film, to bring a kind of justice to the victims. It is likely that he was not too bothered by what others would say.
"We have to tell the truth as it is," he said, quite emotionally charged after the premiere at the "PriFest" international film festival in Pristina on Wednesday night.
Sara (Sheqerie Buqaj), who once had, as they say, the nickname Hana, is a survivor of sexual violence. She is an actress. She has joined an organization led by Fana (Ilire Vinca). The organization deals with the treatment of survivors of sexual violence. It aims to confront victims with their experiences and overcome their pain by staging or filming them. Many victims do not believe this. Even when they believe it, their families refuse to let them go.

"Find others, there are 200 thousand in Kosovo," is one of the sentences of the family members. Data from international organizations speak of about 20 thousand victims of sexual violence in the last war in Kosovo in 1998-1999. Sara is one of them. She plays different characters to help others. But she is shy about getting into her own character. Her father wanted to call her Hana, and now it seems she has a double identity. The film has many subtexts. The team has worked for a long time and has collected many stories. With a script by Fadil Hysaj, it seems as if the team felt a "debt" to each story. In one hour and 27 minutes, the traumas that manifest themselves almost three decades after the events come to light. Hana follows Sara like a shadow, pressuring her to confess and stage what happened to her. And Sara has a double identity: that of a survivor of sexual violence and another that she tries to build in her career. She can't find the balance. Buqaj and Vinca are the duo that carries the weight of the film along with Mrika (Fatlume Bunjaku).

"It was an extremely difficult process, as it took about five years to develop the script, doing extensive research, meeting directly with victims of sexual violence, listening to their stories and processing those stories. The biggest problem was how to integrate a multitude of stories into one story that creates the perfect anthology so that we don't lose sight of what happened in general in the Kosovo war," said director Hysaj. According to him, sexual violence is always considered a weapon of war.

"In this case, we were more interested in the extent of the trauma, how much it reaches our families and what effect it has created 26 years after the war, which has never been treated well. When I say well, I mean that in the concrete sense, no one has dealt with the victims of sexual violence in a complete way, in the sense of healing them from the trauma. Our state has tried to offer a status to these categories, a pension, but it does not bring justice," he said. According to Hysaj, in the absence of justice, they have imagined a kind of justice in the film, staging all these events that they have heard and have tried to bring a true story, where the audience watches, judges and, in a way, gives the verdict of justice.

"We gain this justice in a way through art, which is not only a therapy for the victims who wanted to see the film and face the past, as it helps them overcome trauma. But also for us as artists, art therapy is a kind of confrontation with our events that we must tell the truth, without ever distorting history, without leaving it open, like many other films we have. We have an obligation as artists to mention the full truth, whether it is well received by the international community or not, it should not interest us," he said. For Hysaj, art is the medicine that heals not only the artists who work in it, but also the public that can be associated in any form with the circumstances of an event that is being treated.

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“Apart from art, I don't see a glimmer of justice in this country for the victims at the moment,” he said. Hysaj has a conviction much like Friedrich Schiller's, for whom hope comes with a kind of faith in the emancipatory power of art.

Actress Sheqerie Buqaj has said that she has been dealing with this process for a long time.

"I was lucky enough to live with Fadil and I was inside the process. When we got to the end, I was already ready to shoot. I was saying when I'm going to start, because I have everything inside me. It was like a kind of doctorate. I met many women, I read a lot and they entered me. After the shooting I had a slight depression that I got over. But even tonight I saw that they are still inside me. I am happy that I have made a small contribution with the work of art," said Buqaj.

Actor Shpëtim Selmani has described the film as an extraordinary story.

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"Very good acting by the actors. Dignified for representing our country," he said.

"Hana" brings together many stories in the frames of the screen. Many feelings. And above all, it brings together the hope of overcoming trauma. It does this by showing how difficult it is to do this. How difficult it is to sacrifice yourself for your father and, trying to save him, to be the object of sexual violence, as is the case of the main character. And returning to that memory, along with a staging that occurs in the film, is the bridge that not all survivors can cross. The bridge that holds them hostage and does not even bring artistic justice.