Painting from a scene in the film Gzim Rewind (Ink on paper, 2012)
Gzim Rewind
Film, 58 min (2010)
Tracing a young boy's path, form his teen years in post-war Kosovo, back to his childhood at a Swedish refugee camp.
When director Knutte Wester first meets refugee boy Gzim Dervishi, the child Gzim had spent his childhood at different refugee camps across Europe, escaping the ethnic cleansing in the burning Balkan. In bright contrast to this, Gzim stood out as an extraordinary shining and positive child. But in his eyes there was a darkness with an unbearable gravity, stains of black ink left from seeing a massacre.
During Wester's last year at the academy of fine arts he moved his studio to a refugee camp in the north of Sweden. Refugee boy Gzim came to the same refugee camp with his family, escaping a deportation from Norway. They meet when Gzim arrives with a bus to the refugee camp; Gzim borrows Wester's camera to film his own arrival to the new country. Since then, director Knutte Wester has filmed his friend Gzim on and off for eight years, half his life.
Text by Kim Christiansen/DR Sales