30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Alija is a miner. Thirty years ago he left Srebrenica and Bosnia for Slovenia, where he lives with his wife and two children. In 2009, at the height of the economic crisis and layoffs, he was sent by the company he works for to control the Huda Jama mine or "malignant cave". He just has to make sure it's empty before it's sold: but the mine has not been empty for over sixty years, and the walls in front of it were built for a specific reason. In the labyrinth of underground conduits and caves, Alija discovers several mass graves full of nameless corpses. From that moment on he will try to bring out a terrible truth, against the will of his bosses and of a power that tries to hide the horror, calling the police and the press and bringing to light the evidence of a massacre dating back to the end of the second World War. The third feature by director Hanna Slak is based on real events that involved the miner Mehmedalija Alić, when he found the bodies of more than three thousand people in a cave near the city of Laško: civilians considered collaborators of the Nazis and exterminated. Thanks to Alić's perseverance, in 2016, after seven years, they were accorded an identity, a history and a burial.

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  Hanna Slak

  Hanna Slak (Warsaw, 1975) is a director and screenwriter. In 2003 she earned a diploma in television and film directing from the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Lubiana. She has directed both shorts and feature films, recognised by numerous festivals. Her debut documentary, Without Storm, and her first feature, Blind Spot, garnered important international prizes. Since 2007 she has lived and worked in Berlin.