The Story of Muslima



On November 21, 2017, Muslima Husseini arrived at the Croatian-Serbian border with six of her children, all aged between two and 15 years, and a person she described as a passenger. Her husband and their three other children had stayed behind in a refugee camp in Serbia. Muslima’s plan was to cross illegally into Croatia, where she would request asylum and wait for the rest of her family to join them before continuing onwards to a more developed EU country.

Nearing the border, Croatian police soon approached. Muslima pleaded for asylum for her and her children, but her request was refused. Instead, she was told to turn around and follow the train line back into Serbia. She obeyed their orders. Muslima and her six children were tired, night was falling, and it had started to rain. As the family began to walk in the direction they had just come from, no one among them heard the train approaching.

Tragedy was inevitable...

The Team

Michal Vít
Michal Vít

Project Coordinator

Michal Vít is an assistant professor at Metropolitan University Prague. Michal graduated in European studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic where he obtained his doctorate in 2017. Previously he was associated with the Institute for European Policy (IEP) in Berlin. His research focuses on the process of national identities forming of political parties in Central-East Europe. He underwent research fellowships at the University of Konstanz and the University of Vienna. Currently runs web portal ceeidentity.eu.

    Natalia Zaba
    Natalia Zaba

    Journalist, Researcher, Director

    Natalia Żaba was born in 1985 in Wroclaw, Poland. She spent a decade in the Western Balkan region, first as a student, then as a reporter and media programme manager at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. She covers politics and regional affairs for Al Jazeera Balkans amongst numerous other regional outlets. She has been following the migrant crisis in the Western Balkan region since its very beginning. “The Game” is her debut film and will be followed by another two documentaries with a focus on the societal problem of criminalisation, which is a result of lack of policies and proper response by authorities (both regional, local and international) to the crisis.

      Marko Grba Singh
      Marko Grba Singh

      Video Editing and Production

      Marko Grba Singh was born in 1988 in Belgrade, the capital of what was then Yugoslavia. He is currently studying for a PhD in film directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. Over his career, he has made several music videos for Serbian rock and pop bands, as well as two short documentaries "At Least We've Met" and "Pale", which had their world premieres at the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland, in 2012 and 2013 respectively. His first mid-length film, "Abdul & Hamza“, was in the 2015 competition of Marseille International Film Festival, winning special mention by the jury. In April 2016, as a part of the Looking China project, he made a short docu-ficiton film called "Stars of Gaomeigu" in Yunnan, China. The film won the most innovative short film award at Visions du Réel in 2017. His short film ’’If I Had It My Way I Would Never Leave’’ was screened at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival in the ACID section. He was also a student jury member at the 2016 San Sebastian Film Festival and is currently artistic director of Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival in Serbia.

        Milan Andjelovic
        Milan Andjelovic

        Sound

          Bosko Djordjevic

          Cameraman

          Bosko Djordjevic was born in 1988 in Bor, Serbia. He later moved to the city of Niš and graduated from the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in 2012. He is currently an Absolute in the Department of Photography at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He exhibited at group photographic and multimedia exhibitions at the Cultural Center of Belgrade, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad, the Lapidario Museum in Novigrad, the Ontario Science Center in Toronto, and more.